by Amanda McLeod
Translucence
It suited me, being a girl—invisible
but not yet breathing the thin air
that barely fed my grandmothers,
my aunts, my mother, all the women
who lived up and down my street—
even my teachers, when the principal
walked in.
Invisibility carried a shimmer, a hint
of superpower. A way around. A way
out. I decided to test it, try to make it
more so. I turned toward the animals,
especially the snakes, with their flickering
silence, their molting disappearances,
their racing stripes.
Late afternoons, I leaned my bike
against the side of the house, kickstand
up. After dinner, I slithered away
from the television’s glare to pedal further
into obscurity, aiming for the unknown,
something brittle glittering behind me.
Brett Warren (she/her) is a long-time editor and the author of The Map of Unseen Things (Pine Row Press, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Canary, The Comstock Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, ONE ART, Pinhole Poetry, SWWIM, Whale Road Review, and other literary publications. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, Brett was awarded writing residencies at John Hay Writing Studio in 2024 and 2025. She lives in Massachusetts, in a house surrounded by pitch pine and black oak trees—nighttime roosts of wild turkeys, who sometimes use the roof of her writing attic as a runway. www.brettwarrenpoetry.com
Facebook: Brett Warren Poetry Bluesky: @brettwarren23.bsky.social
Amanda McLeod writes and makes art in Canberra, Australia. She’s about to enter a season of wintering, smack in the middle of summer. Find her on socials and Substack @AmandaMWrites.