"Potions" by Evelyn Combs

The little cottage couldn’t walk away

Even if it wanted to.

Choked by ivy chains.

With grimy windows like portholes

Looking out on a sea

Of green.

Sunlight shows you the spaces

Between the dirt

And the dust

Where glass vials lay cluttered

Along sagging shelves.

Even though the table in the center

Holds only three.

The first is a bottle of blue afternoons

Of double doors thrown open at the singing

Of school bells.

There’s a charm in the shape of the sun

Tied to the neck

As well as a single brown feather

That tilts suggestively at every memory

Of a half forgotten wind.

The second is much less remarkable.

Seemingly empty aside from the faint sparkle

Caught only at just the right light.

The color of chameleons

And getting shoved in

High school hallways.

But the third is infinitely frustrating.

A lonely rose petal floating across

A sea like sunsets and

Strawberry chapstick

Not able to do anything

But cloud up your judgement

In a hazy heart shaped

Fog.

It was the real feeling of slipping away

Hand in hand

That was enchanting.

Bewitching,

With fingernails painted

The color of rubies.

That was the moment

The potion master left.

© 2020 by Evelyn Combs