The sweet sigh of the high note,

            this sudden sound cursed

by a mystical, holy body—fading, glinting,

            gone in a supernal sip

that burns draining down the night’s throat.

Name me the lonely witness

            for this whispered death,

this dark star dropping

            celestial and stony out of a river

of unlit sky. Drink with me,

O lesser god gone up in smoke, fill

            your unholy un-luck

with those of us strung up by glass-bottle

            necks. Grip the amber and chug

us down the way you always have,

with that old-bodied language

            you speak so softly.

Call me your own, come to me swift,

            you destroying angel, teach

me what it means to combust.



J.R. Allen (he/him) is an MFA student at Miami University in Ohio. He is a fiction editor at Great Lakes Review, and his work can be found in Chaotic Merge Magazine, No Contact Magazine, Dunes Review, and elsewhere.