Janelle Elyse Kihlstrom's poems have appeared recently in Gargoyle, Tiger's Eye, The Medulla Review, decomP and BluePrintReview. Her e-chapbook, Les Betes de la Mer, was published by blossombones in 2008. She received an M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins in 2008 and lives in the Washington, DC area, where she edits the online journal Melusine.
Photon
Within its cloak of onionskin,
the eye of light
is always vanishing –
the way the heart sinks
in the afternoon.
The sea like a dead cat,
the sea full of lions.
Of lava-glows
and taffy-colored starfish,
sea lions who pluck
the sea-strings.
In the end, everyone goes,
said the man who drowned
the bag of cats.
Who would die on safari.
On one calf,
a branding wave of light,
a trace of ink-blue
stitchwork, still glows
under fluorescence.
It's all I know of one way
or the other.