Ripping the Sun Out of the Sky by Grace Curtis

Thinking, by Ron Rollins (USA). Contemporary. Click image to visit his site.

Ripping the Sun Out of the Sky
 
 On canvas, it's a black box holding
the sun ripped from
the sky, jagged blues, reds,
yellows left in its wake. Yet no
 
tears for so big a grab no trail
but a tiny droplet of blood,
a smirch, as if the heart came out
with a single pull, quickly,
and was stuffed
 
with an impetuous shove
 
into its cask. Zeus killed
Phaethon, the son of Helios
for his wild ride across the sky
in Helios' fire-spiked
 
chariot. I had no choice, claimed
Zeus to the grieving god, the
 
father. White, the waves
between metal halide
and fluorescent, the colour of
a summer's day, the colour of
heat unseen by mortals
fills the space as if
to frame the unholy
 
deed, the black chest, barely
a skippet, spilling its contents, making
forest trees and grass and
shrub as it touches
down and night-black blood 
 
squeezes out from between
the alabaster fingers
of a reproachful grip.

Grace Curtis

Grace Curtis’ book, The Shape of a Box,  was published in 2014 by Dos Madres Press. Her chapbook, The Surly Bonds of Earth, was selected by Stephen Dunn as the 2010 winner of the Lettre Sauvage chapbook contest, and she has been nominated for a Pushcart award. Her prose and poetry has been or is forthcoming in such journals as Sou’wester, The Baltimore Review, Waccamaw Literary Journal, Blood Orange Review, and others. www.gracecurtispoetry.com