"Restart" by Marisol Brady

If it doesn't matter by Cat Dixon

If it doesn’t matter, can I stay on your couch?
Night’s falling, and when it falls to its knees, I
doubt we can lift the heavy shroud above the clouds
igniting the sky blue or grounding the shooting stars
racing across the heavens. Hours ago, a wreath, no,
a halo of green moss sprouted around your head.
Does it matter that I planted the seeds while you slept
and that I’m now sporting slippers and cream pajamas?
Does it matter that I set your world on fire—
your scorched ottoman, torn curtains, pink skin? All
sizzles until the house is sunset, the garage a tomb, your
horse spooked from the stable, ash tattoos
under your nails. All attempts to restore the sky,
even just a spark, have left us here in the dark.

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Cat Dixon is the author of Eva and Too Heavy to Carry (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016, 2014) and the chapbook, Table for Two (Poet's Haven, 2019). Recent work published in Sledgehammer Lit and Whale Road Review. She is a poetry editor at The Good Life Review.

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Marisol Brady is a self-taught photographer whose work examines the ephemerality of capitalist excess, nostalgic distortion, times we’ve had, times we’ve been told we had, and the time we have left. They cast an optimistic, neon-lensed glance at the decay precipitated by the hyper-escalating economic inequality and planetary destruction of the past four decades that, with some squinting, recognizes its transformative potential. Originally hailing from Long Island’s south shore, Marisol lives in Brooklyn.