The Vast

A poem.

By Kathleen Hellen

Illustration of a single, large rose caught in a storm in a wheat field — Illustration by Ric Carrasquillo

the vast

and all its definitions had dumbfounded. I bit the hand
that fed imagination, took

for pestilence, the flies. For end-of-world, the gully washers.
I shook in handfuls
petals fetched from

doubt

Illustration by Ric Carrasquillo