mineral lit mag
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  • Home
  • About/Submissions
  • Masthead
  • Featured Poets Series
    • 3 poems by Chris Prewitt
    • 3 poems by Taylor Byas
    • 3 Poems by David Hanlon
    • 3 poems by Bailey Grey
  • Issues
    • Issue 1
    • Issue 1.5: Hozier-inspired
    • Issue 2
    • Issue 3: Recovery
    • Issue 3.5: Lana Del Rey
    • Special Summer Solstice Prose Issue
    • Issue 4.1
    • Issue 4.2
    • Still Standing
Pinwheel Mist
 
Breath collects on the optic nerve --
            pausing, pulsing
pinwheeling the contours of fog
                        around a stunted headlight;
            license plaque wearing rust on the backs of its white letters.
 
 
You lean your head out the window and when the mist floats in,
cold clutters my lungs — they are too little to keep the frost off.
 
 
You tell me the ghosts are ringing their bells in the trees
           
            nipping autumn on a busted lip
 
calling the dying things down for dinner
                       
            a chorus of wet shaking branches
                        pushing them down the steps — like ginger.
 
 
Flat feet          tiny palms.
 
 
            I want to be that kind of fire, putting myself out.
 
           
                        I look at the leaves — bodies regrowing redgold
            on the mold scars. You tell me it is the most beautiful time of year.
 
 
            I tell you it carriages me toward a tremor
I look through the window     and shake like the branches
 
You tell me it hurts to keep breathing                                   and I think about floating
 
 
Like the leaves. I watch as they scour crunch together on their crumpling skins,
                                                            readying for boot.
 
Cold dew curdles in the clouds; seeps through hood-cracked car.
Searching for the engine.
 
            It hurts to breathe                  the air sharp, the cheeks rawhide
                                                                                    teeth-torn
                                                                        nervous chattering bones
                                                            looking to bite down on the whole revolver
 
                                                trigger fish.
 
            I can see the rain swimming in the clouds.
It won’t come down.
 
 
I can’t see anything when I hold my breath and you keep telling me to open my eyes.
 
            The road summons another spiral and I argue with your breath
as it smokes up the dashboard.
 
 
The weather smells like bonfire tendrils and I am a soot figure
            smudging skyline.
 
                        You tell me I warm something but I can’t figure out what
 
                        I wonder long enough to turn another curve, blinked half open

Katie Hogan is a twenty year old emerging poet from Richmond, Virginia, writing and living in Denver, Colorado. Her work is forthcoming in The Chiron Review and Ember Chasm Review, and she is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in creative writing from the University of Denver. ​
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