"Ars Poetica: Open Composition" by RL Wheeler

I.

because every year the salt-coloured field of ice glides over the lake’s silent body outside my window like an unmarked tombstone.

because i will never know how many carcasses of fish have sunken to its bottom, never to resurface: each silver scale another forgotten reprieve.

II.

in bed—the gibbous moon’s soft etchings strewn across bare legs—i think of every body being born for death: mine, the smelt’s in the shallow end. how

in each of us, there is an iron pool of blood that wants to bloom into a garden the way Monet’s water lilies were wept river-like onto canvas

in one sitting, only to dry up: the fractured colour meant to prove the rippling light was real. i have hung painting after painting in attempt at self-persuasion.

III.

i do not know the difference between all that is real and all the small, writhing animals that hide beneath every lonely woman’s laden tongue

caressing a clove cigarette, lit tip fading the way a flute pleads for someone else’s air. for my silence to be called symphony instead of wound pried open.

IV.

al niente: someone please tell me the difference between the water lilies and the water lilies: between an instrument’s breath and my own wilting skin—

Rachael Lin Wheeler is currently a student attending Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her writing and photography have been recognized by Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Her poetry appears in various publications. Serving as the editorial assistant for EX/POST MAGAZINE, Rachael Lin is also the founder and editor of Vox Viola Literary Magazine—an intersectional feminist publication—which can be found at https://voxviola.com. She is prone to 2 am laundry folding.