KURT NEWTON

★ ★ ★ ★

POETRY

Sleets

Sleets live beneath the Arctic cold
in crystal clear blue glacial streams,
they swim inverted along the ice shelf
and suck the seasonal algae bloom.

The algae contains an hallucinogen,
so the sleets believe they’re soaring
beneath the aurora borealis,
their fins ballooned to parasails.

Sometimes a sleet remains belly up
long after the algae dies,
the lights too bright, the climb too steep,
the flight too great to abandon.

Mirror Universe

In the mirror universe
up is down and down is up,
left is right and right is left.
The you you see in the mirror
is exactly the same, only different.
Your eyes are more open,
your smile less forced.
When you talk to strangers,
you see more kindness
in their mirror faces,
hear less criticism
in their mirror words.
It is a world of infinite possibilities,
where every intimate detail
is slowly revealed.
But this mirror universe
is not perfect,
it is ground from humble glass.
It doesn’t resolve
every misperception,
only those you no longer need to see.