Chasm

by Lois Levinson

You pick your way
through the rubble
in your quarantine dream
your legs wobbly
the ground crumbling
beneath you
a cavernous gorge gaping
between that luminous confection
you thought was your life
and that bilious vortex
on the other side
your recollection
of the time before
already receding as you
are sucked over the precipice
into the howling.

Lois Levinson is the author of Before It All Vanishes, a full-length book of poetry, and a chapbook, Crane Dance, both published by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, The MacGuffin, Canary Journal, Cloudbank, Literary Mama and otherjournals. She is a graduate of the Poetry Book Project at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, Colorado and is currently at work on her second book. Sabiyha Prince is an anthropologist, artist, and author based in Washington, DC.  Her books and essays explore urban change and African American culture, and her paintings and photo collages grapple with memory, identity, kinship and inequality.