decrescent moon by Risë Kevalshar Collins


               once
entwined on red red red
pillows ensconced in scent
of night blooms on
breezes enamored she swallows
the full moon

               twice
mouth a lush flower tussar
red kisses wedding ring
finger obscure stars shoot
implosions in an anxious sea
she swallows the half moon

               thrice
lips tumid with rapture
ripe fig splayed warm red
pomegranate seeded deep
glistening bittersweet
she swallows the quarter moon

                                            for three seasons
                              red waters burst
                              empty
                              empty
                              empty
                              springs

                                            three summers
                              no rained red
                              no flower fruited
                              no honey suckled
                              no
                              reign

               three autumns
aberrant red rose buds three
winters anembryonic red
cyclamen three years red
peonies abort orbit
blight

               winter sun sets
chroma across the horizon
ashes flurry in a red
river rock garden
i am she who kneels in blood

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Emerging essayist, poet, and fiction short story writer Risë Kevalshar Collins studies creative writing at Boise State University where she has served on the editorial staff of Idaho Review. Risë earned an MSW at University of Houston. She holds a BFA in Drama from Carnegie-Mellon University and was a member of the original Broadway production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf by Notzake Shange. Risë’s play, Incandescent Tones, has been produced off-Broadway and in repertory theatre. Her op-ed essays have been published in Idaho Statesman, The Blue Review, Boise Weekly, Arbiter, and elsewhere. Recently, she was featured on the Idaho PBS online series “The 180.” Her creative nonfiction was selected as a finalist for North American Review’s Terry Tempest Williams Prize. Risë’s creative nonfiction, fiction, and/or poetry appears or is forthcoming in The Indianapolis Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Minnesota Review, North American Review, Texas Review, and in Tupelo Quarterly. Rise’s writing has been supported by a grant from The Alexa Rose Foundation. You may listen to her read two of her poems here and here.