Slivers
After Creeley’s The Flower

I think I layer tensions
like bottles shattered
in ditches the thirsty
refugee hides.

Each faulting gesture
blocks breath,
catches in my chest,
cracks knees in a fall.

Tension is a wasting blade
It slices that one
and that one
and that one.

R.T. Castleberry‘s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Pedestal Magazine, Green Mountains Review, The Alembic and Visitant. Internationally, it has been published in Canada, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand and Antarctica. His poetry appears in the anthologies: Travois-An Anthology of Texas Poetry, TimeSlice, The Weight of Addition, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, Kind Of A Hurricane: Without Words and Blue Milk’s anthology, Dawn. His chapbook, Arriving At The Riverside, was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2010. An e-book, Dialogue and Appetite, was published by Right Hand Pointing in May, 2011.