Now that the shadows have shifted | Lauren Suchenski

thick saturation ; This October world ; this golden sun dream beaming ; This orange rust brush,

russet indigo golden stream of sapped honey – thick light This forest – paled in air just thick

enough to feel – a mingled spoon twirled cup of cold and warm touching each other through a

screen door ; this temperature of air – each fully formed particle both heaving away and

clamming together all at the same time // walking through this air a wall of mixed temperatures

caressing one another / an orgy of lost weathers knitting sweaters for the new day \ and here the

red perched next to the yellow perched next to the green / The half-assed rainbow of the season

waving its tinny flag // and the grass; the long grass, each spoked wheel of a spoken word

speaking back — the way they catch the golden hour in their trilling hairs — the way they weave

baskets of golden light on the ground — their own woven delicacies ,, the heat has no sticking

power;; flutters but cannot land ;; touches but does not settle , The way the slightest shadow of a

tree cuts through the warmth firmly / as if this light were butter half melted // the way that

summer fills completely every arched and laden walkway; this light is a character, touches only

where it is seen, flees where it is hidden, stretches its webbed fingers only as far as they can

reach, before it peels away, busy on its next adventure to infect some masterpiece ;; to trace a

honey outline on some spiderweb ; to glaze the sublime on the side of a wall, and to follow you

back along the path, now that the shadows have shifted

Lauren Suchenski has a difficult relationship with punctuation. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and four times for The Best of the Net. Her chapbook “Full of Ears and Eyes Am I” (2017) is available from Finishing Line Press, and a full-length collection “All You Can Measure” as well as a chapbook “All Atmosphere” (Selcouth Station 2022) are forthcoming. You can find more of her writing on Instagram @lauren_suchenski or on Twitter @laurensuchenski.