The Light that Got Lost

by Jessica Heron

A chain letter used to be something to honor. The sense of duty to mystery—

Was this exhausted the way a long life is exhausted by its torpid chores? 

The way a languorous tide rolls over glistening shells, 

then in its elastic rush home, seizes the shells and swallows them whole? 

The messenger holds a glassine envelope, looks through the pale 

liminal sky into a hidden middle distance and reflects in standard-issue blues 

the midnight horizons where the once-children longed to go. 

Brenna Desborough is a senior majoring in art therapy and psychology and minoring in art history.

Jessica Heron grew up splitting time between New York City and New Jersey beaches. Her work has been published in Wormwood Magazine. She is working on her MFA in poetry and enjoys a career as an applied linguist.