Shatter the Blue
Swallows scratch the dusk
sketching longer, deeper shades of night –
a gulf of inky sky lingering
like the bitterness of this morning’s quarrel.
A stone where lotus might have bloomed
if apologies hadn’t staggered,
hadn’t stagnated – a cloud brooding
and heavy, rain menacing.
In the darkness, mint and honeysuckle
suggest a calm – one that appears
when there’s an empty chair, a closed door.
About the Author: KB Ballentine’s latest collection All the Way Through was published in November 2024 from Sheila-Na-Gig Inc. Current books can be found with Blue Light Press, Iris Press, Middle Creek Publishing, and Celtic Cat Publishing. Published in Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature, North Dakota Quarterly, Atlanta Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, and others, her work also appears in anthologies including Women Speak (2025) and The Strategic Poet (2021). Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.
Image Credit: Itō Jakuchū “Swallow and Camellia” (ca. 1900) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
As It Ought To Be 