"Damaged Goods" by Matthew Fertel

Carol Berg | Self-Portrait as Chihuly Glass Flower

I capture light with my reflective powers—
a delicate green no leaf has ever woven.

You think I curl into fragility, but my curve
is a steadfastness. My petal grown from

intricate intertwining threads. My scent
is evanescent, like the yeast

of a champagne bubble. He blew his breath
into me and I unfurled into a spiny creature

you want to touch, to clasp with both hands.
That’s how you know to shatter me.

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Carol Berg’s poems are forthcoming or in Gyroscope, Crab Creek Review (Poetry Finalist 2017), DMQ Review, Hospital Drive (Contest Runner-Up 2017), Sou’wester, Spillway, Redactions, Radar Poetry, Verse Wisconsin. Her chapbooks, Her Vena Amoris (Red Bird Chapbooks), and “Self-Portraits” in Ides (Silver Birch Press) are available. Her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. She was winner of a scholarship to Poets on the Coast and a recipient of a Finalist Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

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Matthew Fertel is a Sacramento-based photographer who has worked in the Photography department at Sierra College since 2004. Before that, he was a fine art auction house catalog photographer in San Francisco for over 10 years.

Matthew's current work focuses on capturing the minutiae he encounters in his daily life. He seeks to expose the hidden beauty in the everyday objects that make up the landscape of our existence. Going to the same locations over days, months and years allows him to capture images under different lighting and weather conditions, and to see objects change over long or short periods of time. There is art hidden everywhere if you learn to see it.

Learn more at his w​ebsite and on Instagram.