A Memory More Photogenic

By Kelly Lenox

Today, under my door: an envelope as orange

as autumn moonrise through the telescope

we took to the mountain (those trees could singe

an eyelash held to the lens too long)—spilled a wire

when I opened it. Or no, a moustache

hair—could it be his?— colored like the fire

we built later, bottle passed underhand

among us. In art, it is Marcus who captured

that night best, ampersand

superimposed on the scene, a tender

note from a memory more photogenic

than ours. No, the paper is pomegranate.

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Kelly Lenox (she, her, hers) is a writer and translator with work in Gargoyle, EcoTheo Review, SWWIM, Cirque, Hubbub, Split Rock Review and elsewhere in the U.S., U.K., Ireland and Slovenia. Her debut collection, The Brightest Rock (2017), received honorable mention in the 2018 Brockman-Campbell Book Award. Her second manuscript, No Other Ground, is looking for a good home. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Kelly holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is editor-in-chief of the National Institutes of Health Environmental Factor.

She may be found on Instagram or on her homepage.