Winter Blooms by Natasha Bredle

Snails have infested my garden.

They are preparing for the winter storms

By suckling dandelion stems. 

Weeds I give willingly,

But once their hallow cadavers shed,

The legged bullets transition to my winter blooms.

I see it as a mirage. I see it in a dream. 

Goddesses, falling. White dresses billowing 

In a cataclysm of shriveled membrane.

Their blood will seep back into the Earth. 

They will be recycled with the worms. 

Yet even in their corpses I cannot fathom less beauty. 

The grim-studded, the tall, the bloomed,

All wielding their colors against the cold,

Rebelling against their own fragility. 

Warning loiters on my lips, 

But grows pungent like salt.

There are no words, only the knowing. The waiting.

I have weathered what they have yet to. 

A sparrow is stripped of her feathers

And falls to her knees in silence as 

The bronze beggars march on, footless. 

Vessels bow their heads, but gleam brighter

As if knowing their window to shine grows thin. 

Two days and gorges devour their lucent petals. 

A week and they shrivel to nothing. 

A month and I am haunted by ghosts. 

Their cries are deafening. 

They coax me into their naked embrace 

And I fall endlessly. Now, this mirage

Of resurrection. I dream of crying, and know 

If I could bring them back,

I will have conquered everything. 

---

Natasha Bredle is a young, emerging writer from Ohio. Her works have been featured in numerous international journals and anthologies, including Aster Lit, Aurora Journal, Kaliopsia, and Open Minds Quarterly. In addition to poetry and short fiction, she has a passion for longer works and is currently drafting her third novel.