Back to Issue 11.

lost and found

Norah Brady

she’s fallen into a haystack, worm in the apple, needle

on a pitchfork, penalty, space between inch of flesh and dust to dust,

hay in her mouth, mouth like an apple, circle of red falling from

the orchard she dances in is golden, I told you she was lost

and she is, stuck in the barn loft, but who says there can’t

be an orchard there before she falls into a haystack like leaves

might fall if autumn ever came here, she sells money for money

for a metal detector, did you forget how sharp things look

like fish in the moonlight, bright things, how fish flop

after she brings them from their baptism, how the scales glisten

with gristle, she eats the eyes too, maybe they can find the worm

she bit into, wriggling, belly bait as she falls into the haystack,

for all she knows the sky has vanished, for all she knows she is a

scarecrow returning, the needle pinning straw into a body gone,

body emptying again, bucket with a hole, bucket of bait, bucket

filled with nothing at all, lost in a haystack, no luck with the needle,

you’ll have to remind me how this one goes again

about the writer

Norah Brady is an 18 year old moon enthusiast, haunted house, and mountain poet. They were a runner-up for Youth Poet Laureate of Boston in 2020. Their poetry and short fiction works can be found in Rookie magazine, the Ekphrastic Review, the Blue Marble Review and elsewhere.