No. 1 [Untitled] / Sunflower Poem #1 / Here Comes the Hurricane #2 / Circadian Rhythm Theory (Sunflower Poem #2)
by A.L. REID
in Fall 2024
Trey Campbell, Untitled, 2024
No. 1 [Untitled]
Spider web
right in front of me.
I wouldn’t have known had I not
leaned forward
to find it already
wrapped around my head
in a memory I wanted to forget.
Sunflower Poem #1
Sunflowers mean love. At night,
when there’s no sun
they still reach forward.
Meaning respite, when you want to weep like a spell.
Too heavy to harvest, collapsing in absolute worry
They still face the sun—unafraid
of where the rage might go
when you give up repression.
Like a seed, it lives
to expand with perfect domination
Sunflowers mean everything comes to light.
Here Comes the Hurricane #2
The wind is loud tonight and it’s not telling when it will stop
like a howling coming toward me getting louder into a buzz, rushing toward the swallowing white noise and then I hear rain.
Unraveling outside my window, the storm grows into a tempest, flooding into a wild vacuous night and without the sun’s exhilaration backlighting the day, I am left alone with why I feel unfulfilled tonight.
Left alone in the heat, like a fantasy, the temperature’s rising
and you are not ready. Here comes the hurricane,
Banging like the spirt of Alloura.
How far is it, how close is it to me?
Circadian Rhythm Theory (Sunflower Poem #2)
The radius of the sun’s light echoes at night and
with the inevitability close, the petals
like a compass, finds the stem stretching
to seek tomorrow. The leaves reach out
to let the thought pass through,
separate from the body.
Everything is fantasy except the sun.
It will come, like a hero waiting
to return to an ordinary world—circadian rhythm
yearning for the separation that preconditions harmony.
Persisting when orientation is a focus against trust.
Abiding where reward is a cause for return to
existential courage.
Where is the moon tonight?
A. L. Reid is a Black nonbinary poet from Virginia with degree in Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University. Their writings primarily explore the spaces and ways Black queer people connect as a means toward liberation and praxis toward love. The House Ballroom scene and connection to nature as a grounding are their current primary writing interests and they are currently developing a chapbook writing toward those subjects.
