[Julie Steiner]

Morning arrives in waves that sculpt the sand
to feline shapes and worse.

—>

Tides of daylight sculpt his psychic sand
to feline shapes and worse.

?

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Matt,

I’m very late here but I’ve been reading this for a while now. I think it’s a very well crafted poem. I read it as being about any kind of traumatic experience, whether mental health or addiction related, where the residual trauma lingers beyond the point where the world feels like the person should have “got over it”. The last two lines, with the modern-sounding (to me) “quilt”, brings the poem out of the mythic/biblical realm and into the contemporary in a very powerful, affecting way.