When the Cold Names Its Ghosts /// by Ronda Broatch

[vc_row row_height_percent=”50″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”3″ bottom_padding=”3″ back_image=”56863″ back_position=”center top” overlay_alpha=”0″ gutter_size=”3″ shift_y=”0″][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ position_vertical=”bottom” style=”dark” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″ width=”1/1″][vc_custom_heading heading_semantic=”h1″ text_size=”fontsize-338686″ text_height=”fontheight-179065″ text_space=”fontspace-111509″ text_font=”font-762333″ text_weight=”700″ text_color=”color-xsdn” sub_reduced=”yes” subheading=”by Ronda Broatch”]When The Cold Names Its Ghosts[/vc_custom_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space empty_h=”2″][vc_column_text]Most afternoons, I sweet tea through fields
of grief where prophets gather to feed.

The chickens have gone to roost. Soft mouthed
bears come calling. All winter

this was how I saw them. Even when floods
drowned the moon, those sibyls were out

of order, sowing wishbones along the path.
Old songs uncover thorns. Pluck these

feather-bones, pare the blood beneath my nails.
Most afternoons, I renounce everything. I am

staying forsaken, keeping a few claws in a drawer,
giving way to vagrant lovers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ align_horizontal=”align_center” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″ width=”1/1″][vc_empty_space][vc_separator sep_color=”color-184322″ el_width=”30%”][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ align_horizontal=”align_right” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″ width=”1/3″][vc_single_image media=”57430″ media_width_percent=”100″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]Ronda Broatch is the author of Shedding Our Skins (Finishing Line Press, 2008) and Some Other Eden (2005). Nominated seven times for the Pushcart Prize, Ronda is the recipient of an Artist Trust GAP Grant, and a May Swenson Poetry Award finalist. Moon Path Press will publish her next collection in 2015. Her poems can be found in print and online, in Mid-American Review, Redivider, Superstition Review, Prairie Schooner, and Rhino Poetry, and anthologized in Fire On Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry (Two Sylvias Press). Currently, she edits the literary journal Crab Creek Review, and spends much time behind the lens of her cameras.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row]