Molasses-dream

The fighting blood,

and the power

of broken bones mending.

Flip the unknowing cause of famine

and feed on faith like a summer’s feast

of fruits and nuts accepted as a birthright.

Change is incremental, even the change

of death takes time to incorporate into

the nervous system, slowly inching into reality,

sometimes healing in its wake, always scarring.

Bedrooms are emptied, new homes are formed

with the hope of comfort and forever.

Prophecy has landed on my roof, digging under

the shingles to nest and brood.

I accept the brisk cold. I accept a soft landing.

Love never gives up

and that’s the most important part of love

I have ever understood.

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Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2025

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Winamop” December 2025

https://www.winamop.com/ag2500.htm

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Published in “Raven Cage Zine” December 2025

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KW0UWFfIqyNpYjP2KeJwmAfDqAIlS-ZD/view?usp=sharing

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/RavenCageZine99.pdf

.

.

You can listen to the poem below:

Slowly the builder builds

but the miracle-maker is quick –

enormous change, dreamt-of-no-longer.

The end-result is a shock of grace

and the depths of God’s power displayed,

gifted for no deserving reason but love

and the faith that the receiver

has in that love, welcoming that love.

Mustard seed blooming in seconds,

why look under the blankets or walk

the steady path? Matter is a wave dipping,

flowing, curvatures actualized,

only incrementally understood.

Sticky fields surrounding,

demanding interaction

as the master-builder alters creation in a blink,

with compassion stronger than a stormy sea,

stronger than death or deformity,

strongest still in the peace

of utter surrender, after cellular breakdown,

after defeat, after defiance is broken,

this love floods like a wind, gathering velocity,

gathering together proportionally all things

perfect, flawed, absolutely divine.

.

Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2025

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

.

First published in “Winamop” December 2025

https://www.winamop.com/ag2500.htm

.

.

Published in “Raven Cage Zine” December 2025

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KW0UWFfIqyNpYjP2KeJwmAfDqAIlS-ZD/view?usp=sharing

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/RavenCageZine99.pdf

.

.

You can listen to the poem below:

Star

I think if I was a trillion-year-old

star blazing, always in deep transformation,

pulling planets into my orbit and asteroids

and the tips of angel-wings, bypassing,

touching, fearless, as bright or brighter

manoeuvring with unexpected harmony

then remembering would be easy – to see

the past as a sealed perfection, no matter

how apparently flawed, to see myself

as the same

then I would vibrate in a place where there is

no guilt, no lack, and all I do

and all I can not do would be set as

a rock on a shore –

full of dents, instructions and veins

of rich (sometimes glowing) colours inside

it would be enough to be that rock

or that star – one thing, whole,

changing without struggle,

combusting or eroding

without attachment, without pain.

.

Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2025

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

.

First published in “Winamop” December 2025

https://www.winamop.com/ag2500.htm

.

.

Published in “Raven Cage Zine” December 2025

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KW0UWFfIqyNpYjP2KeJwmAfDqAIlS-ZD/view?usp=sharing

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/RavenCageZine99.pdf

.

.

You can listen to the poem below: