from Portraits
Kristina Shue

i. January

Elvishly tall, wide brunette curls waterfall
over gently sculpted shoulders, the lean
silhouette of an undressed tree. Her lips berried
and full, skin unblemished, almost albino. Narrow
hips rounded. Wide-round eyes constantly imploring,
shining with an emerald’s core.

iv. April

Skinny young boy, wispy like a nymph, curls and tangles
fracturing the sunlight. Light sprinkling of freckles like faery
dust on his delicate nose, his effeminate cheeks. Standing angled,
posed, not gawky as his age, his lips twitch up toward his bright,
quick-wandering eyes—flaring in greens and blues. 

x. October

An opaque vision of earth-bound color, skirts aflutter in breezes tickling
trees into to losing their leaves. Naked limbs exposed, strong and rooted
in the tumult of subterranean  rivers. Eyes dilate with the moon, wild
with the wind-whipped flush of something coming, something coming,
something coming. Lit candles burning leaves and pressing ghosts.