Jonathan Simkins lives in Denver’s RiNo district. He is the author with artist Justin Ankenbauer of the ekphrastic chapbook, Translucent Winds (Helikon Gallery & Studios, 2016). The title poem of his second chapbook, This Is The Crucible(LuNaMoPoLiS, 2017), was nominated for Best New Poets 2016. His poems have appeared in various publications, including Epigraph Magazine, Gingerbread House Literary Magazine, Literary Orphans, Requited Journal, and Wilderness House Literary Review, among others.

Gwyn

It’s grounded in the crucified soil.

It’s the mark and the mark’s absence.

It’s Rorschach skeleton

Flying

Butterfly blue,

Skull putrefying on the sea bottom

Letting go.

It’s peace for the sickle and the snake,

White for the white noise drowned

In the deepest water.