Denise Gilchrist is a Pennsylvania poet and former pharmaceutical technical writer. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Paterson Literary Review, Multiplicity, The Gentian Journal, The Woodside Review, Tiger Leaping Review, Floating Acorn Review, and other journals. She is a student of Sogetsu ikebana and is currently working on her first poetry collection.
                                            Black Nectar
Moon in my room
silver quilt glowing

enchanter’s nightshade
opens—
supple, white

dark forest perfume
deep ripening—

her sweetness
drawn




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Memory Girl
I wept in the shotgun seat
stomach aching,
tailbone bruised—
that salty breaker.

Ghetto blaster
warming my lap.

Charlie’s dead.
The car is night.