From “Snowflakes”
My bleached hands
are full of snowflakes I cupped,
that bleed of chemicals they steep.
Category / Publishing credit
Excerpt: Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls
From “Sun”
molten rock to your core,
depleting you,
thrusting you out of a drunken state,
awake
Excerpt: Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls
From “Commuter’s Tears”
Oil rainbows evaporated in the rain,
leaving only the memory behind.
Excerpt: Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls
From “Fog”
Fog rises over the river.
Hands close over headlights,
luring the sleepy back to bed.
Excerpt: Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls
From “Pests”
Because I knew it would fall victim
to that same mistake again
soon enough
and I would be there to see it die.
Excerpt: Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls
From “Eclipse”
Fragments of light,
love’s final words—
the space between.
Excerpt: Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls
From “Sleet”
Words ceased to leave mouths,
but fall
instead
with the sleet:
a state in between,
never committing
to one side
or the other
Excerpt: Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls
From “Tsunami”
Aftershocks remained
in glass fragments in the mind
that broke with each thought,
each glance
Excerpt: Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls
From “Earthquake”
Café patrons lock eyes.
Brief sips paused.
Excerpt: Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls
From “Thunderstorm”
A beauty you dare not touch,
like the question that goes
unanswered between us
as the lines on the highway
and roadside weeds blur
with the rains that fall
J.L. Smith 