Topography & Silence
Briane Willis
Image by Nik Shuliahin
Topography
This history unfolds me
Like an old map
An accordion of paper
Old and reliable
With marks on a landscape
Telling a story of nature and construction
There is a city
There is a river
And I am in between
Creased by the putting away
And getting back out
My fibers thinning
One day they will yield and tear
It will be simple and mostly quiet
But the stories that came before
The ones that made the hills sing
With lush grasses
Whose roots go so deep
They quench the aquifer’s thirst
Those tales
Enrich the present
Fertilize our moments
The urgent seconds
That cut the soft skin of hands
Like paper maps
When unraveled too speedily
One day I will tear
And history will start anew
A fresh border
An unfamiliar boundary
Stapled and taped and glued
So that the pieces aren’t lost
But reform
Anew.
Silence
There is a silence that exceeds me
In shape and breath
An eternity of pauses
Entwined with stellar dust
Stretching inside the chasm
That my hands create
As they hover, curving
Your sleeping form.
Briane Willis
Briane Willis writes poetry, fiction, and non-fiction from her homestead in the Texas Hill Country. They dabble across genres and format. Their literary work can be seen in Carmina Magazine, Lover’s Eye Press, and Solarpunk Magazine.
Written in Leaves, a queer romance set in 1820s Paris, France, is their first novel. Their collection of short stories inspired by fairy tales and fantasy, entitled A Mythology Woven, explores darkness, hope, and healing. A duology of Greek mythology retellings, By Your Eyes and Each Path a Red Thread, investigate the burden of being called a monster, and the profound relief of acceptance.