Katy Joy Richardson – 3 Poems

The Repeating Image
I’ll revisit it,
being cut glass.
An empty vase
on a table.
Cleaned. Discarded
dead bouquet
tied and hanging
somewhere.
I’ll revisit.
It’s morning. The
light streams in.
Fills me. Through
me. It splays color
and geometry
across the table.
I’m not angry.
Believing in resurrection
is trusting death.

Ruddy Tavern Women
With nouns like drop
biscuit instructions—
gumption and pluck—
we fumble with
the newly acquired
key ring.
There’s one in there
with the potential for
openness—a slide
and a click and some
pushing, the kind we’re
used to.
A door has never been a
door unless it’s been ajar.

One Truth for Another
Here is the moving picture.
It’s one of me, spitting
out bones. Bones in
my mouth so long
I thought they were
necessary teeth.
Necessary teeth I
thought had loosened.
Nope.
They were bones.
And I spit them out.
And now I’m not,
as it appeared
I would be,
toothless.