SANDRA RIDLEY: A POEM

Priska Wettstein, courtesy of Red Edge Images

From Vigil/Vestige


Ecstatic
and liable to rapture
in the hours before dawn.

We’re beckoned to the lake
to the ruin.

An omen.

Our salvage—shivering by the weeds.

Revenant, we falter toward the good—
for the smallest amount of the most worthless thing.

Sleepless
and with shy sweats
and the cold we’re night-blind by.

After-dream terrors
of a slaughterhouse—
or a labyrinth
akin
to a slaughterhouse.

Lured.

One by one.

Our frights
and nerves.


Sandra Ridley is the author of three books of poetry: Fallout (Hagios Press), Post-Apothecary (Pedlar Press), and most recently, The Counting House (BookThug). She knows how to use a compass. Read our conversation on landscape, language and poetry here.