your eyes are closed but
you still feel the light and you
wonder what will bite from
within the dark portals. water
flows through the portals and
you ride it in into the beyond
which is rough and choppy but
thrilling and splashy too. you see
the other shore so you climb
and you feel that you’re thinking
but the clock says it’s time to build
a house on mossy ground where
birds are smokey and flowers all red
and singeing fires flagrantly burn
this is not hell although you can
smell sulphur there are other more
fragrant smells and you think but
you musn’t so you feel the sound
of a door that is cold and steely and
you see chicken wire pressed be-
tween panes of glass in this place
you are confined you are captive
now and you know you’ve been tor-
tured. violet petals cover your limp
body and everything’s fine.
Marianne Taylor is a bookseller at Powell’s on Burnside where she manages the sales floor in the Blue, Gold, and Green rooms. In a previous life she taught literature and creative writing at a Midwestern college, and her poetry has been published widely in national journals and anthologies. She once served as Poet Laureate of her former small town, but for the past three years she’s been trying to find her way around Portland.