Karen Pierce Gonzalez
Leaving Cleveland
Tack up a stuffed animal for the City Beautiful.
Ice pulls a sheet over the lakefront and already
the onramp waits slack-jawed to pop me like a pill,
count me one more bead come unthreaded. Memory,
a rosary in the junk drawer. Losing the will to
anything is hard to admit. Make it a double
for my birthday because tonight it’s impossible
to get my fill. Of this city’s windchill, legends,
slaps across the face. I leave it and it leaves me
numb with awe. Of emptiness, its howling love
but not in love with. Oh, this awful departure.
Edie Meade is a writer, artist, and mother of four in Huntington, West Virginia. Recent work can be found in New Flash Fiction Review, Fractured Literary, Janus Literary, Ghost Parachute, and elsewhere. Say hi on Twitter @ediemeade or https://ediemeade.com/.
At home in Northern California, Karen Pierce Gonzalez is a mixed-media assemblage artist. Her work has been shown at Truckenbrod Gallery (Oregon), Santa Rosa Arts Center, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, TINY GALLERIES, Virtual Art in the Park and other places. Each piece is a conversation with tree bark, branches, roots, chalk/oil pastels, fibers, found materials and, when lucky (really lucky), salmon leather. Website: karenpiercegonzalez.blogspot.com.