Thin Air Magazine

Skip to content
Menu
  • THIN AIR ONLINE
    • SUBMITTED WORKS
      • FICTION
      • POETRY
      • NONFICTION
    • STAFF CONTENT
    • FLAGSTAFF LITERARY EVENTS CALENDAR
  • SUBMIT
    • SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
  • ABOUT
    • MASTHEAD
    • STORE
  • Archive
Home
Search

“Illinoise Gothic” by Jemma Leigh Roe

  • by Thin Air Staff
  • Posted on February 11, 2022December 18, 2021


Illinoise Gothic



When you dissolved

into the white expanse

of silence, they kept telling me

you had gone to the silo

that stored our nightmares,

story after story,

on the unblinking plain.

Through the rippling rye

to be threshed at dawn,

I raced against the tornado

swallowing whole fence posts,

pickup trucks, livestock, sod,

screeching words unutterable.

Beyond the state limits

on a night of no sound, I

found your bracelet

caught between the barbed wire:

a gibbet for all that remained of you

I could keep safe.



Jemma Leigh Roe studied art at the Université Paris-Sorbonne and received a PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from Princeton University. Her poems and artwork are featured or forthcoming in The Ilanot Review, Thin Air Magazine, Literary North, Canyon Voices, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and others. www.jemmaleighroe.com. Instagram: @jemleighroe.


Posted in SUBMITTED WORKS, THIN AIR ONLINE

Post navigation

Prev “Gray Horse” by Glen Armstrong
Next “Butter Coffee” by Suzy Eynon

Archives

Thin Air Magazine is a non-profit, graduate-run literary magazine published by Northern Arizona University

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • THIN AIR ONLINE
  • SUBMIT
  • ABOUT
  • Archive
Website Powered by WordPress.com.
Press Enter To Begin Your Search
×
  • Follow Following
    • Thin Air Magazine
    • Join 967 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Thin Air Magazine
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar