The Wound

Impressionist style painting of the Italian countryside with trees in the foreground and a village in the distance

Bordighera, Italy. Claude Monet. 1884

Ariel K. Moniz

Ariel K. Moniz (she/her) is a queer Black poetess and…

The summer tide wanders,

a daydream among gentle waves of reverie—

the fizz and laughter of virgin mojitos at dusk,

glass bottle Coke perspiring at midday—

the splintering of a rosemary bush

between the dull blades of garden clippers—

a chapel bell in the valley chimes every sacred hour

between the echoed sighs of a highway three miles off—

a woman, bronze and warm
asleep in noonday sunshine

in love with nothing and no one

but the cool touch of floor tiles
and the blessing of bare feet—

and somewhere in me

still far too alive
there is a wound—

a beautiful wound

made with the knife
of perfect happiness.

Tags

beauty free verse poetry summer

Ariel K. Moniz

Ariel K. Moniz (she/her) is a queer Black poetess and Hawaii local currently living abroad. She is a co-founder of The Hyacinth Review, and serves as a poetry reader for The Lumiere Review as well as the social media manager for Liminal Transit Review. She is the winner of the 2016 Droste Poetry Award and a Best of the Net nominee. Her writing has found homes with Blood Bath Literary Zine, Sledgehammer Literary Journal, Black Cat Magazine, and Sunday Mornings at the River Press, among others. She holds a B.A in English from the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where she once served as the editor-in-chief of Kanilehua Art & Literary Magazine. You can find her on her website at kissoftheseventhstar.home.blog, on Twitter @kissthe7thstar, on Instagram @kiss.of.the.seventh.star, or staring out to sea.