One Sentence Poems

Devon Balwit Guests Sometimes in winter, the light catches the water to reveal ice-bloom, a strange lace very like the fungus that occasionally dapples my belly and sends me reaching for cream, for no reason, really, so gentle a guest is it as we briefly share a skin. Devon Balwit is working on welcoming the […]

Devon Balwit How like Banksy, God is, our hidden telomeres programmed to shred just when we become sure of our worth, our readiness for a climate- controlled museum cabinet, for an encomium- laden retrospective, gavel banging down on a million-four, our loved-ones gaping at our disintegration. Devon Balwit wouldn’t mind being the Banksy of verse.

Devon Balwit Still Wonderful Whatever war-damage it has suffered, however smaller it has become, it is still a wonderful city.                    (C.P. Cavafy) Either we are or are not a great empire, some days reigning from a distant throne, cells well-trained legions splitting and sloughing, others chasing […]

Devon Balwit Rubbernecker  Look, look away, the feed’s grim dance, the lesser kudu, all whorled iridescence, holding me a full breath or more, while the starving polar bear, a slink of ribs and misery, catches my eye only long enough to identify it, before, unable to soothe and so sick to see, like a rubbernecker […]

Devon Balwit The Lesson of Ilmarinen  Before you feed your forge, consider why— otherwise, though ductile, your metal will cool bent, your golden crossbow ever-hungry for blood, the prow of your shining ship locked towards war, your bright ox belligerent, all hoof and horn, your shimmering plow uprooting fields— and by the time you work […]

Devon Balwit Saint Jude Always scavenging, my husband cannot say no to a free box, arms spilling castoffs, broken things, books in languages he cannot even read. Devon Balwit religiously guards her one countertop. Anything of her husband’s that touches it gets swept to the floor.

Devon Balwit Conditional When the dog ate my French novel, I was mad, but when it ate my bra, I was not even sorry. Devon Balwit learned late in life that she is a sucker for dogs.

Devon Balwit The End We clean the rental house before we go, regretfully, room by room, gathering up all we brought, much as we will do with our bodies when it is time. Devon Balwit is fighting the good fight and refuses to dress her age.