Virga

Virga

Kate Millar

Is it all in how you see? I try to notice the delicate leaflets
of the ivy-leaved toadflax growing out of the stone wall

but feeling flickers past me—a scintilla of sun on a car windshield.
My head is a house of crockery in constant mitosis. My soul ricochets

off itself, tightening like a rag wrung out. Let me fling my phone
into the ocean, snap my laptop across my knee, and tumble toward the sky.

But it’s dark before five now and I feel sick when I think about that.
I wish the leaves stamped into the ground were enough consolation—

but it’s not much. At sunset, when I come to the sea edge
the blush light has receded farther than I think I need.

It’s wedged against the rocky coastline, and weighed
down by cloud. I insist the sky to glory me. I am mad

at its refusal. I turn my back on the North Sea, dismiss
the slick brown sheen of West Sands—and the light

disarms me as I look towards the carpark. There is a thin veil
of yellow descending through a gap in the clouds onto a puddle.

From where I stand, there is no reflection, no face that shines
within the pool. But I feel, somewhere, a window pried open.

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Kate Millar
Writer & Poet

Kate is a 22-year-old poet from Edinburgh, Scotland. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at The New School in New York City. She was the Principal’s Scholar and Lawson Memorial Prize winner at The University of St Andrews for her studies in English literature. Her writing has appeared in A New Ulster and Lucent Dreaming.

Photography by Devon Beard