Photophobia
Golden shovel after Theodore Roethke
I need a hole to crawl in,
a cave, a cocoon, a
cool marsupial pocket of dark
peace. Who needs sight all the time—
the fish in Mammoth Cave glide through the
Mystic River like finned tongues, pink-white, eye-
less, sensory papillae their only guide. My smiting begins
with a glare, a pupillary bruise sending sonar ripples to
brain, temple, cathedral of pain: the migraine’s holy see.
THERESE GLEASON’S poetry, flash fiction, essays, and hybrid work have appeared in 32 Poems, Atticus Review, Cincinnati Review, Indiana Review, Lunch Ticket, New Ohio Review, On the Seawall, Rattle, and elsewhere. She is author of three chapbooks: Hemicrania (forthcoming, Chestnut Review, 2024), about living with chronic migraine; Matrilineal (Finishing Line, 2021); and Libation (co-winner, 2006 South Carolina Poetry Initiative Competition). She was born in Springfield, Illinois and grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. She currently lives with her family in central Massachusetts, where she teaches English language and literacy to multilingual learners in the Worcester Public Schools. (Online: theresegleason.com)
Midwest Review 