A.J. Huffman- Three Poems

I Am Shadow

conceptual darkness reflecting held form.

Temporary, I grow and recede as a matter

of perspective.  I am bastard daughter,

cast-off of the sun.  She cannot face me.

I will not be seen.  We are paradoxal twins,

desperate to sever our own lines.  Blood

is not light.  Its tethering touch cannot be

scrubbed clean.

Feathered Snakes

coil and fan, mocking their own shadow.

A cross forms on parchmented floor.  Signal

or signature?  Either reads as a form of

finalization.  Hissed whispers call to the moon,

nothing answers but my mind.  It vibrates

in foreign rhythms, translates itself into broken

stars to pepper a path across this midnight sky.

Because Bits

of trivia embed themselves in my brain,

I am now acutely aware

that cockroach eggs permeate

all aspects of our lives.  In fact,

I cannot shake the image of myself

ingesting several invisible dozen

of these disgusting ova daily.

Nothing will ever taste

the same again.

A.J. Huffman has published seven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. Her eighth solo chapbook, Drippings from a Painted Mind, won the 2013 Two Wolves Chapbook Contest. She also has a full-length poetry collection scheduled for release in June 2005, titled, A Few Bullets Short of Home (mgv2>publishing). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www.kindofahurricanepress.com