Apertures, by Karen George

​Apertures
 
This was inspired by Isobelle Ouzman's altered book sculpture titled The Stag, 2022:
https://isobelleouzman.com/portfolio/the-stag-2022
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O, to discover a secret nightlife in a forest breach where a wall, an intricate, spiral weave of daisies, violets, fern & ivies, rises from the ground into the heavens as far as you can see. You climb the braided mesh, strong & thick as bricks, yet soft & pliable, to a gap like a window or a mouth. Inside that space a crescent moon hovers surrounded by stars speckling a black-velvet sky. The air’s cooler the higher you climb, but the network of flora emanates a sweet, earthy aura that feels like a warm embrace.
 
When you’ve absorbed all you can, limbs weary, heart light, you glance down to gage your way. To the right, another opening shaped as an egg, filled with stars and a stilled stag, head raised in praise of the luminous moon. You descend, eyes held on the stag, hoping to witness its supreme leap.  

Karen George

Karen George is author of the poetry collections Swim Your Way Back (2014), A Map and One Year (2018), Where Wind Tastes Like Pears (2021), and forthcoming ekphrastic Caught in the Trembling Net (2024). She won Slippery Elm’s 2022 Poetry Contest, and her short story collection, How We Fracture, which won the Rosemary Daniell Fiction Prize, was released from Minerva Rising Press in January 2024. Her work appears in Adirondack Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Poet Lore. Her website is https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/.