Red Lion Amaryllis
by Kelly Houle
When I woke it was as if you’d died. It was raining. You were a hemisphere away. You flew all night into more night, landed on an island where nobody knows how to pronounce your name and none of the technology works the way it did when you were here. I’m wondering if you got my messages, but they all say the same thing.
I was remembering how we started the day as we always do, held together in one coffin’s worth of space, a place I never want to leave, especially when it rains, but I had to take you to the airport and drive back here alone. It was dark. I sat on the roof of our bed dangling one foot off the ledge, bored gargoyle waiting out the rain.
The whole time I was sketching you were in the sky. That night you called like you said you would. I could hear you, but you couldn’t hear me. Now you’re asleep, as you should be, but it’s morning here. Later, in the kitchen making lunch I’m going to want to tell you things.
Kelly Houle’s poetry has appeared in CALYX, Crab Orchard Review, The Kenyon Review, Radar Poetry, Sequestrum, and many other publications. She was recently named a finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize, the Fischer Prize, the Arts and Letters “Unclassifiable” contest, and winner of the Vivian Shipley Award from the Connecticut Poetry Society. Kelly is also a painter and Nature Journaling Ambassador for the Wild Wonder Foundation. Her paintings and handmade books are in public and private collections around the world.
Red Lion Amaryllis, Graphite on paper, 20 × 16 inches. Click image to enlarge.