Before the morning’s full exhaustion, the suds of sleep dissipate, the full circle looms and
you climb inside, shuffling thoughts and urges, tedious practicalities, a faint notion of
future and inevitable collapse. Perceptions come into focus, ideas flatten or curve. To
comprehend the chaos one adjusts, continually, after crashing into walls. Waters rise,
animals vanish, the hum of a ballgame in the background, a barking dog, the electric bill
due tomorrow, the last pitter of milk, fat free. Sorrow in fragments, changing colors like
chameleons, disappears.

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Mercedes Lawry is the author of three chapbooks. The latest, In the Early Garden with Reason, was selected by Molly Peacock for the 2018 WaterSedge Chapbook Contest. Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Poetry, Nimrod, and Prairie Schooner, and she has been nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize. She has frequently published short fiction and was a semi-finalist in The Best Small Fictions 2016. Her poetry book, Vestiges, was just released by Kelsay Books. Her collection Small Measures will be published in 2024.

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