Kira Trainor is a New England writer and educator who has studied as a fellow at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, among other places. Her first publication recently appeared in Nimrod International, having received an honorary mention in Nimrod’s Francine Ringold contest.
Remember the falling marigolds,
petals absurdly orange
swept against a sky of soft metal
like the sunset breasts of barn swallows
whirling above wrecked nests
in the dark, spidered dust
of stall after barred stall,
their babes’ blue-lidded bodies
tossed from loft to floor
before the shadowed eyes
of horses at twilight―
now hold your own hands
inside the MRI machine, praying
to all the fragile things.