~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Maisie Smith

Lazarus in the Delta

Delta at night.

An oil slick across

star tight skies.

I know these roads.

Gently, childhood

ghosts resurrected.

On the corner,

a deer smushed

poppies on the charcoal.

A headlight

or a psychopomp

hard to tell this late

at night. Delta

bruised, wet static

tickling trees.

Skies drooling stars,

it only rains like this

in the dark.

A fear of being,

of soppy daylight

baring all scars.

I return

to my driveway,

knifed in the night.

Delta, a nostos

a flood of sky, deluge

of nigh, I rise.

Two Sides of a Highway

I could desire like the thin silk

of a candle just blown out.

You could ask me what that means,

and I’ll tell you. I’d like to take you

on a long drive. We know the endless

gasp of a highway, the fine lines, the inside

of the car an echo chamber dampened

with backdrop jazz, what this all means

when I can’t focus on the road.

I specifically chose Ella Fitzgerald

because you like the way the notes round

moonish over the track. That is desire,

is it not? To want to be alone like this,

close to each other but unable to touch

across the chasmic rift of a console. Yes,

that is desire like a gasoline stain parched

for a quick spark to let light. But for you,

I could desire like the thin silk of a candle

just blown out.

Maisie Smith (she/her) is originally from nowhere but likes to claim the blues-soaked state of Mississippi as her own. She received her BA from Ole Miss, her MSc in Poetry from the University of Edinburgh, and is currently a PhD student at Baylor University studying Southern Literature and the Southern Gothic. Previous publications include Landshark Literary Magazine, From Arthur’s Seat, and Book of Matches.