Victoria Garton

The gods keep changing, but the prayers stay the same.

Yehuda Amichai

First the dogs, mangy and snarling,

bare teeth and rip our screens.

They howl as we shut and lock windows.

Then children more despicable than hungry

knock and beg at every bolted door.

We lower blinds as darkness hides all but cat eyes.

When the pole light blinks on and the moon rises,

we spy through high rectangular door windows

a caravan of aged V.W. buses crowded on the lawn.

I feel such love for your silhouette as the moon

in slices sends eerie light to your bracing shoulder,

gleams off the kitchen knife you grip.

Behind thin armor of prayer, we face the new gods.

I plead old entreaties as vapor like Saran Wrap

slips under the door to cover my nose, my mouth.

Your quick ragged breath abruptly stops,

and I shock my death with final praise

to gods of the life, we will know no more.

In 2023, Victoria Garton had the chapbook Venice Comes Clean published by Flying Ketchup Press. Bright Flash Literary Review accepted her flash fiction, and poems were accepted or published by Clarion, Cosmic Daffodil, I-70 Review, Proud to Be (Honorable Mention), Sangam, Sparks of Calliope, The Ekphrastic Review, The Penwood Review, The Seraphic Review, Thorny Locust, WayWords Literary Journal, and Vital Minutiae.