"Moon Pool" by Kelly Emmrich
twinned by Emily Blair
when we’re here, there’s record. leftovers. tube TV sizzling gray when flicked off.
when I’m alive, there’s markings.
my oils on a car door.
I’m told these fragments stick around forever, moats flecked off my body uncontrollable.
if you strain, you can hear hair grow. improbable, I know. trees pulling up to the sky,
scraping underside.
once I was in the rain-swole creek and went under and heard
every fish ever here, every crawdad, every mud turtle,
joyously alive and well, joyously living and fucking, joyously birthed and re-birthed.
above the ripples, the after rings hollow as a burnt-out log.
if I went to the other side of the world and dropped a marble, you would know.
when I’m alive, there’s markings.
my oils on a car door.
I’m told these fragments stick around forever, moats flecked off my body uncontrollable.
if you strain, you can hear hair grow. improbable, I know. trees pulling up to the sky,
scraping underside.
once I was in the rain-swole creek and went under and heard
every fish ever here, every crawdad, every mud turtle,
joyously alive and well, joyously living and fucking, joyously birthed and re-birthed.
above the ripples, the after rings hollow as a burnt-out log.
if I went to the other side of the world and dropped a marble, you would know.
Emily Blair is a queer Appalachian poet. Her most recent work can be found in Hobart, Pidgeonholes, Heavy Feather Review, Barren Magazine, and others. She currently lives in North Carolina with her partner, their pets, and dozens of houseplants.
Kelly Emmrich is an illustrator and animator living and working in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her work has appeared in the magazines Moonhood Magazine, Dream Noir, and Meat for Tea. She studied creative writing and animation at the University of Mary Washington. She is currently working as a beer label designer for a microbrewery in Afton, Virginia and also as a freelance animator and illustrator.
