THREE POEMS

Madeline Blair




wound
time is an open wound ⬩ always am i picking the scabs of my life  

back open again ⬩ it’s about time i put down the knife & enjoy

the roses i’m given ⬩ by now i think i’ve stopped smelling like smoke ⬩  



i fear healing means forgetting  ⬩ i still remember everything despite

all the blood & sweat & tears ⬩ i’m afraid all i’ll ever be is more

archive than human being ⬩  always reliving grief that needs leaving



behind ⬩ we seldom remind ourselves the miracle that living is ⬩  

& how regrettably violent my soft hands have been to my own  

skin ⬩ so badly i want gentleness to cradle my face in its palms ⬩  



i want to be loved like a kitten ⬩ cared for and comfortable ⬩  

(since birth my cats have never known an unhappy day) ⬩  i want to love you

like it’s my first and last time loving ⬩ i’d like to lighten



all your burdens & cast them out to sea ⬩ it would be beautiful ⬩  

i’ll make all the water sparkle ⬩ heal all there is to be healed here ⬩  

use my hands for good for once & tend to the garden of our lives




Night Flutter
Curled somewhere at the bottom of the shower

between hungry and high, I respire. Nightlight  

through the curtain droplets illuminates  

my harsh angles hugging into the back of my thighs. I won’t let myself  

wake him another night in a row, there is nothing to do but wait it out—

the fluttering from my neck to my core.  




Rahmah (Mercy)
وَرَحْمَتِي وَسِعَتْ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ

“and My mercy encompasses all things.” —Surah Al-A’raf


keep kind, dear one.


love is cool water, no smokeless flame.


remain tame, tame—quiet, quench, sustain.



Madeline Blair is a poet, editor, and award-winning filmmaker based between Chicago and Dublin, with a BA in Creative Writing from UIUC. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in GONZOID, Okay Donkey, BULLSHIT LIT, Blood+Honey, Burial Magazine, Michigan City Review of Books, Dodo Eraser, Luna Luna Magazine, Ekphrasis Magazine, and more. She has been interviewed by The New York Times and CBS Chicago on her passion for clean air.