My solar system is under the couch.
I put it there because the birds
wouldn’t stop complaining about
the change in gravity, the way
the wind has been singing. Tremulous
and low– it has been calmly breaking
the little people, their legs and arms,
the way killers do
in the movies and I can’t look at the
tendons, cartilage. How pain is
scattered around my house
like bright flowers: orchids or dandelions.
I thought about fishes and
golf clubs and little grains of sand.
I thought about what is underground,
and snow. About lemons and that
bright, bright beautiful hummingbird
I found dead under a bench when
the streets were just turning grey.
Little rat bones, no one will see you
rot. No one will sing and hear your name.
– Laurel Jones is a junior at UTC studying English.
Sequoya Review 