Judith Borenin

Adopted at birth, Judith Borenin’s adoptive mother died when she was four and was thrust into an Australian convent into the hands of The Sisters Of Mercy (who had none) at the age of ten when she adopted Poetry as her mother. Her life has been a sequence of holes, hence, her poetry plumbs the depths of darkness, gazing through shadows and looking, looking, looking about like the light in a Jan Erik Vold tree. Her poetry has been published in various online and print journals including – The POETiCA Review, Synchronized Chaos, The Night Heron Barks, The Lothlorien Journal of Poetry, Rough Cut Press, Sandpiper, The Floating Bridge Press Review IV, The Raven Chronicles, Ethel Zines 3 & 4/. Her chapbook, The Evidence & The Evermore, was published in 2019 by Sara Ethel Lefsyk (Ethel Zine).

Varicose Veins

Into the blue bruise held captive by cracking grey sacks above a
gull’s hysterical laughter shrieks. Below - crimson sap slowly
gathers in splayed veins branching through boughs – preparing
to curl into red deadfalls of leached leaves. A diatribe of darkness
descends ending sun’s dry dominion. Erect grasses quiver like hairs
on pale necks expecting electrocution.
In the white room - held captive byspackled walls - electric fans
have been buzzing through the night – rotating in place with asthmatic
whines. Beneath a vernix of peeling creamy paint the past thickens –
lifting yellowed wings through fissures - attempting to escape. Layers of
lonely ingrained hours passed – branchbeneath ivory walls - veins
arching through cracks with a shriek.

Broken Threnody

After he diedevery time I saw the
mother deer andher two juveniles I
swallowed down astrangled cry. Today -
innocuous enough – that man on the corner
summons up notes from the body of his harp –
but he repeatsover and over the
same three notes which tighten together like
like a knot ora scarf stiffening around a
throat in a noose.
Above black chokedexhalations of passing cars
they float – over braying dogs – over a carnival
of barking crows – thosethree little notes. Expectant I
wait - holding my breath until each one erupts - three
notes that hold a song cupped in its palm - like a mother
and two sons whose bloodsings the same song until one of
them is irretrievably gone.

In Absentia

I wake up without a soul - emptied of dreams. Coffee with news and a cigarette
rush in to fill the void. The room resounds with silence except for an insistent hum
in ear canals – the emptying echo of a dying wind singingin deserted alleys and dead
ends. Uneventful uneventful except for the suffused light falling against the window
failing to find a way in - the day passes for a thought thatcan’t connect. A gale begins
with a wind that scurries back-handed against the current casting black gloved shadows.
With ragged breaths waves whiten and rise. Downfolding dimness looks in through locked
windows pressing dirty palms against the smudged panes. The moon comes to rest like a wafer
on my dry tongue. Seeking absolution I surrender to sleep to finally dissolve in oblivion.

The Vapors

Sullen smoke corrodesthe last breath of breathable
air. Sun snuffed out. Shadows stumble in the engorged grey
that thickens with an aftertaste of rust. Comatose fog horns
drown surrounded by a white shroud that won’t unwind. A
heron hunches at the water’s edge. She shakes out her grey
skirts and stands - undone by the vanished horizon as sluggish
waves unsettle sand beneath her feet. She periscopes and stalks
off searching for some way out. Her silhouette congeals behind
her like cement. Dispirited raindrops fall – frail and ineffectual –
turned away by the grey stone façade above. A groaning specter
cracks and bends its bare boughs – lifting root after root as if escape
was possible or even enough.

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