I live atop a smoldering volcano, always rumbling and threatening to erupt. I’m used to the smoke, my skin so grey on cloudy days I melt into the landscape. I’m used to the noise; it's my lullaby when, having exhausted myself in the balancing, I finally collapse. Why, you wonder, don't you climb down?
Oh, I've tried standing tall, surveying the pitted surface that slopes to civilization, but acrophobia grips me, talons relentless, sending me spinning into such mindless panic I’m dizzied and must sit, trying my best to breathe. The devil you know, you know... It may seem an odd request, but I pray for a pyroclastic flow.
RC deWinter’s poetry is anthologized, notably in Uno: A Poetry Anthology (Verian Thomas, 2002), New York City Haiku (NY Times, 2017), Cowboys & Cocktails (Brick Street Poetry, April 2019), Nature In The Now(Tiny Seed Press, August 2019), in print in 2River, Adelaide Magazine, borrowed solace, Genre Urban Arts, Gravitas, In Parentheses, Night Picnic Journal, Prairie Schooner, Reality Break Press, Southword, and Variant Literature among many others and appears in numerous online literary journals.
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