Circles for Wheelmakers (rock edition)
Marcella Durand
Word count: 124
Paragraphs: 7
Circles for Wheelmakers (rock edition)
Turn on candle
to face nest of trees
flanked by rock
of so many layers
it reaches a wave-
shape, reaches pyramid
it does not have myths to say to me
but then my hearing is not tuned
to its volume
it leans upward
event pushed it over, or
some hand underground
any caves lead to more rock
asked about candles
(we return to candles)
I am burning candles, not
turning on lights, yet
insects are not shy, hatch tiny
green and then enormous, you
cannot lead away from me, your trails
are deep, and now you reply in a single note,
your only indicator in the dark.
Marcella Durand’s next book, The Temple of Happiness, is forthcoming from Black Square Editions fall 2026. Her book, A Winter Triangle, received the 2024 Poetic Justice Institute Prize (Fordham University Press, 2025). She is the co-editor with Jennifer Firestone of Other Influences: The Untold History of Avant-Garde Feminist Poetry (MIT Press, 2024).