Ventriloquist

The night in your throat is leaden.

You stand on the porch & watch

as your daughters ride into the dawn on the back of a comet —

and the wind chime above your head chants them farewells, the cat

at your feet wails the after cry —

for your own mother loved you with a lapful of steel,

her mother

loved with arms brief as elsewhere,

and the night in your throat

is a knot of blackbirds

tumbled mid-flight.

Anni Rannisto is a 34-year-old poet from Finland and the author of a poetry collection called “Moonbeam Sentinels & Sunbeam Forgettance.” Her work has also appeared in poetry journals such as Humana Obscura, Free Verse Revolution, Scissortail Quarterly and The Winged Moon Magazine. In her free time, she loves to go on long hikes with her camera, nature photography being one of her passions. You can find her on Instagram under the handle @reveries.of.atlantis