Holly Wells

SEIZURE IN THE BACK YARD

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Wisps of darkness wrapped
around my spine and wrung
like a bullwhip winding around a fencepost,
but I fell away from myself

into a deep light
that seized my shadow-world and shook it
until it shredded like live Lazarus's shroud.
Fear retreated
into some hiding place among the bushes,
and I was madly conscious of a prayer holding me, a sprig of life left behind among last year’s dead leaves.

I returned to myself,
ever after quick to question
all things shadow-like,
those sheets of gossamer
doomed to fray.

Holly Wells lives in Mississippi and has taught both high school and community college English. As a writer, she is interested in examining the truth that lies within many of life's paradoxes. Her poetry has been published in The Copperfield Review, Torrid Literature Journal, TWJ Magazine, and Sehnsucht.