Isabel Szurlej

SAINT OF STATIC

A red wing opens, metal-lit, rising in cold blue.

Broken horn arcs up, a question honed black.

Lightning, held against cobalt-inked skin,

erases names—splitting the mask down the middle.

Below: an equine skull—ice-sheened, hollow—

stares through the color—into that stained-glass fire.

Two kingdoms argue here: the red of alarm,

the blue hush after screams.

The edges blur; the world can’t bear

to focus on what’s kneeling in the storm—

a saint of static, unblessed,

learning its wing—the fracture hymn in chrome.

 

A red-winged saint in the weather—

not flying, more like breaking through.

Feathers alight within, furnace-pink,

a heartlamp bleeding in the fog.

Then this: a silent siren-shape, half beast,

half omen, dragging chill across the air,

thunder in reverse, caught mid-violence.

 

A forest, bright as a freshly opened lung—

and then that: a stamp of panic

pressed into waking.

The sun keeps pretending nothing’s wrong,

leaf after leaf applauds the breeze—the scream

is already here—thought, hung between trunks.

Not a ghost—a painted billboard

in the green, saying: NOT YET.