BIO
Jeremy Birkline has taught English in South Korea and is a writer of poetry, fiction, and drama. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Texas. His work has been published in The Criterion and one of his plays was produced by his college. When not teaching, reading, or writing, Jeremy practices Tae Kwon Do. He currently holds the rank of a third degree black belt.
.
Black Hole
Death is among the stars,
Burned out remnants of a beautiful thing.
Blinded by the screen of gravity:
Your eyes
Used to spin
As they ate me alive.
Glistening
In the twilight of lamps
You burned through your fuel,
And couldn’t stop yourself.
Gravity is a patient killer.
It will wait for you to burn through
What’s left of me
And crush you.
The Woman that Might Have Been
-inspired by Gustave Caillebotte’s Mademoiselle Boissière Knitting
This woman ……… might be my grandmother,
sitting in a quiet moment,
between a skein of yarn
and a knot.
This woman might ……… be my grandmother,
sitting atop the antiques
that lived in her youth.
This woman might be ……… my grandmother,
if my grandmother ever learned how to knit,
ever learned how to reel in the patterns that tie
the moments of our lives.
Now all I see is her seat,
Sitting alone ………. in my mother’s kitchenette.
.
*****