"Serenity Unveiled" by Julie Epp
Lizzy Ke Polishan | a white coyote is drinking from a skylight
a white coyote is standing on the roof of an LA salon
drinking from the skylight
he is slanted in a slanted square and his tongue sends
ripples through the water and the ripples are in the clouds
the sky is a blue sky and the coyote is a white coyote
and his tongue sends ripples through the water
and the water ripples like sound waves of sound
I want to
hold this still...
...here is Jesus in a coyote
drinking from a skylight
on an LA salon, framed in the slanted
square, backlit by the blue
white clouds a white
coyote the water is holy water and this is
a baptism you never
get to be on the underside of a baptism
but here I am looking at the underside of the rippling
water through to the clouds...
...they are bringing the direwolves back to life & ada limón
watched a baby horse fall out of horse
already a horse
she said they are bringing the direwolves back to life & the memes
are about Jurassic Park & my mom
pulled over for a motherless
baby coyote crying into the dark & my mother
had six McNuggets & a slanted box & a baby
coyote was crying for
the absence of its mother my mother
said shhh my mother got out of the car my mother
offered six McNuggets to the motherless my mother said here
drinking from the skylight
he is slanted in a slanted square and his tongue sends
ripples through the water and the ripples are in the clouds
the sky is a blue sky and the coyote is a white coyote
and his tongue sends ripples through the water
and the water ripples like sound waves of sound
I want to
hold this still...
...here is Jesus in a coyote
drinking from a skylight
on an LA salon, framed in the slanted
square, backlit by the blue
white clouds a white
coyote the water is holy water and this is
a baptism you never
get to be on the underside of a baptism
but here I am looking at the underside of the rippling
water through to the clouds...
...they are bringing the direwolves back to life & ada limón
watched a baby horse fall out of horse
already a horse
she said they are bringing the direwolves back to life & the memes
are about Jurassic Park & my mom
pulled over for a motherless
baby coyote crying into the dark & my mother
had six McNuggets & a slanted box & a baby
coyote was crying for
the absence of its mother my mother
said shhh my mother got out of the car my mother
offered six McNuggets to the motherless my mother said here
Lizzy Ke Polishan’s recent poems appear in or are forthcoming from Gulf Coast, Passages North, Waxwing, Poet Lore, Epiphany, EPOCH, RHINO, Salt Hill, Black Warrior Review, and others. She is the current Managing Editor of River & South Review. She is a poetry reader for Psaltery & Lyre, a Guest Editor at Palette Poetry, and the author of the poetry collection A Little Book of Blooms (2020). She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband.
Julie Epp is a watercolour artist based in Metro Vancouver whose intimate, dreamlike paintings explore hidden emotions and the shifting layers of identity. Through delicate, surreal imagery, she reflects on what is lost, buried, or unspoken within us. Her work invites stillness and self-examination, offering viewers a quiet space to reconnect with their inner world. http://www.julilyart.com/
