Void

meet me inside the cyanometer. where blue is 
recorded in shades of silk. where we measure 

our tongues and the flecks inside our eyes. meet me
and I draw a circle around us. say a spell. utter 

chants in the frayed language of my cheeks. full 
red pool of longing. on the color spectrum, 

I stand across from you and tell you I love your hair. 
the color void from its follicle. I am a shade of cerulean, 

or the Texas sky mid-rain when the clouds sheer 
and wander apart. here, on the inside, it tastes of milk. 

it feels like a blank piece of paper. something translucent, 
like a rock worn away by water and skin. I trace the outline 

of your kneecap and find a slate grey vein to loop around my 
finger. keep for later, reminder to floss and turn 

my socks inside out. I want to judge the sky for how it looks 
down at us. its fickle and changing face. your blue, blue vapor. 

SARA RYAN

Sara Ryan is the author of I Thought There Would Be More Wolves (University of Alaska Press), as well as the chapbooks Never Leave the Foot of an Animal Unskinned and Excellent Evidence of Human Activity. Her work has been published in or is forthcoming from Brevity, the Kenyon Review, and other publications.