New Poetry by Karen Pierce Gonzalez

Retrograde

Like cratered Mercury

ringed by mile-high mountains

and wide depressions

             you travel backwards

three times each year,

            screw up schedules,

            prove your small planet

pull on my life.

I am under your influence.

Unstable, too close to the sun,

you rotate away from me,

burning.

- © Karen Pierce Gonzalez 2022

Karen Pierce Gonzalez lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Blue Pepper. Her mini-chap True North (Origami Poetry Project) will appear July 2022, and her chapbook Coyote in the basket of my ribs (Alabaster Leaves) will appear February 2023.