by Annette Sisson

Sharp as a pen,
as an ink-tipped

tongue, a horntail
snail leaks

iridescence in soil
where huckle-

berry canes
long as antenna

lean into speckled
light. Seeds

spill from a coiled
brain, words

curl across a page,
unfurl, flicker

like bits of fig,
like sun pearling

the hilltop, spirals
of flung stars,

their dusty arms
a syntax of silver.

Annette Sisson lives in Nashville, TN, and teaches at Belmont University. Her poems appear in The Penn Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cloudbank, Rust + Moth, Citron Review, Cumberland River Review, Sky Island Journal, West Trade Review, and many other journals and anthologies. Her second book, Winter Sharp with Apples, was published by Terrapin Books in 2024. Her first book, Small Fish in High Branches, was published by Glass Lyre Press in 2022. In 2024 one of her poems was a finalist for the Charles Simic Poetry Prize and two were nominated for The Pushcart Prize; in 2025 her poems were named finalists in River Heron Review’s and Passager’s annual poetry prizes.