- Write Right Now
"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