June 30, 2026 - the final cento

you can’t take the countryside out of me

Kristina Byas, Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson,  Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason, Jingyu Li, Shane Moran, and Stefanie Zito

I go to the trees,
raspberry my heart in blossom,
where sleep left me, torched,
and asks nothing of me
lovestump,
rising off dry ice. — serious — we’re mute ash,
a path worn smooth by someone else’s footsteps.
Yielding detours of my own
and I felt that in my bones.
Unearthing detritus of days gone by,
mistaking this scar tissue
between green covered mountains,
little sticks of dynamite
fading as they flutter, turn pale
like sails over her eyes,
settled inside the wound
and blanket myself in breath.
I can finally breathe.
fluency in us —

Still finding his balance
this moment will never end.
In one dream, the ghost said to get dressed for bed.
I’m delighted to wrap
the laughter of those missing.
Seen
for the son buried warm.
What we owe
tap root to sink
until it fell in line —

Curiosity called me to climb:
I wanted to do it right, but I was peopling
heroes or foggy mirrors of our fellow struggles
even dreams must bind to —

Am I growing into my father’s sunlight
Because, somehow, I love my father still?
I like watching you smoke,
One mouth moving at a time —

God is a watchmaker in an old southern town,
like a half-dollar rattling the floor til’ flat, hand-holding and
was touch with him. I keep returning
for years, calling it home —

Exchanging hunger for love was routine
in my family. We called it Tuesday.
But the people who chose me back
scatter through the fields, where
my nightmares denting the pastures,
and rejoice in having my life for the living —

I release the interrogation of my own existence
into paper, the winter that healed
the more we flinched against that fire –
After the run of the day the sun takes a dip.
I want those june bugs back —

Birds sing me back to life, making the city
swelt red from my skin
until the day I die and go to hell,
I’m rooted for the season
across our skin again
in terrible corners —

I sometimes shudder to consider
sour obedience.
I lay myself down
then stayed on purpose.
I left the light on in the house.
I believed in infinity then.

I build, I change, I repair.
Begging. I say to you
in some dreams I’m the monster,
roots sprawl, building a staircase as
they move like teeth. Out here in the woods,
I wish I could repent at your bedside
atop the horns you hide.
The cherry, your mouth,
my sensual sanctuary
she gave me. A stone for holding
Kintsugi of hearts, frozen lake,
the sun sporing itself through the clouds —

Hope is enough to let it.
I can be the sturdy clay of earth
settled inside the wound:
I love you—infinity—

I wake up and try to remember
am I still
shimmering and white, monstrous angels
spanning from gold to blue —

I tried to write a love poem but I pained
all the fuck alone in my basement
this internal bruising, we’re just committing
a tap root to sink.
– all I think about is the coming storm
in purple hands.

Watch me silently sit,
the wing fells into the porched arch of my lower back,
belly down. Her ear resting right below his chest
into the untamed fields—a violent dell –
the shadows do not hold,
spikes pointing every direction —