Sara Fitzpatrick
​

Displaced, a Devotion
 
This is not a story about a house.
 
I have no dreams
of a renovated church             gutted and wall-less,
a bed an island the opposite of cozy as afternoon
sun beamed red through leaded glass.
 
Rest inside the nothingness
             your dreams
a projection against a smoky void.
 
How many lives
have winked into a votive
 
             and what color is devotion?
There was a time
 
I would not have turned away your hand
for being so slick. The time is never
 
and my only wish is to live
atop
a lighthouse
             beacon shearing through salt fog.
 
I always wake up to the sound of falling rocks.
Enough, and together they could sink a ship. It's
every night.                            


This isn't about that.


The Primary Colors Bleed First
 
In an attempt to plagiarize myself I get dressed
            in the morning. I will never get away with it.

All the phrases I've hollered before. Thrift store
            bargains, tattered. Held together by tape and pins.

This moan is day-old bread already stale. When
            we used to begin my wardrobe was primary colors.

I never do hand washing. It never used to bother
            you. Today you said I'm like a worn-out VHS.

A copy of a copy. Dorothy before the tornado.
            The blue bowl hurts my eyes so I put it in a box.

I only buy fruit when it's on sale. I'm embarrassed
that last week I put on a lacy yellow bra and got
in your way when you were reaching for the filing
            cabinet. I put it in the bag for Family Thrift.

The phone rings orange. The fire engine screams
            lightning. I can hear the bowl expanding in the box.

            Will you notice the exploded shards? All that blue?

​
--
Sara Fitzpatrick is author of Bury Me in the Sky, published by Nixes Mate Books in March of 2020. Her writing has appeared in journals like The Night Heron Barks, Thrush Poetry Journal, Tampa Review, and X-R-A-Y. Sara works as a manager at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter in New Mexico.