By Colleen Alles
After Rene Magritte’s, The Empire of Light
Like an eavesdropper on a low conversation in another room, a lamppost stands alone outside the walls of the white stone house—the one shuttered to the world, closed in a tight cocoon refusing entry to further light. Upstairs, the house seems content to let the twin windowpanes speak for themselves, mark the telltale sign of a couple up past their bedtime a man too restless to sleep, a woman too tired from the long walk under the hemlock for dreams. Their bodies hum from mulled wine warmed on the stove: redness and richness honey and tangerine basking in their own remnants, the close of the day so in love with its own bright spices.
Colleen Alles is an award-winning writer living in West Michigan. She writes fiction and poetry. The author of two novels and a collection of poetry, she is also a contributing editor for short fiction at Barren Magazine. She loves distance running, craft beer, traveling, her family, and her hound dog, Charlie. Please find her online at www.colleenalles.com.
Sarah E N Kohrs is an artist and writer, with over 100 journal publications of her poetry and photography. She is the 2022 Kingdoms in the Wild poetry award recipient for her chapbook, Chameleon Sky. Sarah has a teaching license, endorsed in Latin and Visual Arts, and homeschools, as well as works in her pottery studio, creating clay art to savor. SENK lives in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, kindling hope amidst asperity. http://senkohrs.com.