I had yet to see a mantle
that soft and sweet.
Not in its taste, but kindness.
I guess, it was in the way it fell—
No. Trickled down—but not out
of sight.
Gently filling in their footprints;
everyone came and went, but it stayed
hoping someone would notice.
Only the crunch of boots remained,
slowly disappearing like the morning birds
in the early fog of winter.
From its incessant showering of delicate
affection, perhaps, it did not care.
Blind, I persisted.
No amount of shovelling or running it over,
turning the beautiful, serener hail
into dirt slush, discarded mounds
of frozen mud, will stop it from falling.
I looked onwards, as it covered everything:
the white sheet pulled over our heads—giving
me something I longed for, for decades.
Miguel Guerreiro Lourenço is a Portuguese poet and writer, currently living and studying in the United Kingdom. He is influenced greatly by many contemporary artists and slam-poets, but its his love for music, namely hip-hop, that shapes the flow and rhyme schemes of his pieces. Miguel aspires to entertain as much as to inspire, for he believes there is always something worth writing about in all of us.
Jayne Martin is the 2016 winner of Vestal Review’s VERA award for flash fiction. Her work has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Literary Orphans, Midwestern Gothic, f(r)iction, Blink-Ink, Spelk, Cleaver, Connotation Press and Hippocampus among others. She is the author of “Suitable for Giving: A Collection of Wit with a Side of Wry.” She lives in Santa Barbara, California. Find her on Twitter @Jayne_Martin.
Kate Garrett is a writer, mother, editor, wife, history buff, and amateur folklorist. Her work is published here and there online and in print, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her most recent books are
Foxglove Journal 