Two Poems

By M. Klein

Bristol Gothic*

She carried me through the woods back to the basement —
the subterranean window with desperate floral curtains
closed tight against the pressing darkness.

She showed me the soft green stars stuck up there
on her teenage bedroom sky like pinky swear promises
with secret fingers crossed.

She buried us in the flinching moonlight
under the rusty carpet
with her own girlhood. We rotted there.

*previously published in chapbook “Brentwood”

Morning

lambs ripple like sunlight
unbuttoning the wrong meadow

two allium blades sigh a vigil
for melting stars

rusted ceremony
of blackberry stitches, and buds

M. Klein is a poet and artist from an Appalachian basement. Her work is tangled in mother hunger, and shaped like a promise. Her writing has been published by, or is forthcoming with, Pile Press,  Fifth Wheel Press, and Not My Style. Klein’s debut chapbook,  Brentwood,  was published in 2023. She can be found on ‘twitter’ @st0nespiral and Instagram  @stone.spiral .