It’s the color I notice 
first. A message in the air a 
cracking open. A red inside 
like a brick or a memory or a
substance coalescing like a shot 
through the years and this is
visual. I can see the soft layers 
punctured. See a needle, the impact,
the sacrifice. The thread making its way 
to me now. A cartoon bubble 
without the spoken point. So if 
there’s a voice, if there’s a mouth 
opening and closing, there is 
no sound coming out. And yet
the winter berries are bright, 
not sooty or lichen. I’m walking 
around the lake which is white 
with snow and ice. Which is 
a lake I walk around everyday 
without knowing it.

—

​​Liane Tyrrel is a visual artist and poet. Her poems have been included or are forthcoming in: Peatsmoke Journal, The Shore, EcoTheo Review and JMWW among others. Her prose poem “Spontaneous Combustion” was nominated for Best Short Fictions 2021. She lives and walks with her dog in the woods and fields of NH.