The crowd welcomes me warmly and there is no shame in wearing a life jacket, nor is there dread in the heart of a child asked to perform a song on a spot lit stage.

All these starched napkins holding forth at dinner are entirely a matter of my own expectation. Yes, but if you serve caviar in cut glass bowls, a glittering future will be yours, which would explain why it’s important to save for a rainy day.

Think of it as a minor flood; a ruined silk rug never hurt anyone. I would have worn armbands, right? Haven’t I always floundered in water, like all those commuters, evidently still struggling to be seen and not heard, evidently still drowning?

OK, I concede that ambition dulls the senses, dims the sight of those grey-suits with their cut crystal voices.

Inside a book bound in velvet, stitched in gold, you’ll find a crumb of pastry, flake of tobacco, lock of hair.

No one will ever steal those books from their rows and rows of silent, gleaming shelves.

A thief takes a timid step in a library at night; CCTV picks out his grainy, trembling shape but his face remains a blur.

Don’t let me confuse you. I can pick you out in a crowd like a ray of light.

Crowd, 2021 (paper collage)

Copyrighted © by Jane Salmons. All rights reserved.
Appears here with permission from the artist.

Jane Salmons

is from Stourbridge in the UK. Her first poetry pamphlet, Enter GHOST, was published by dancing girl press in 2022. Her debut poetry collection, The Quiet Spy, was published by Pindrop Press, also in 2022.

Jane has micro and flash fiction stories published with MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Ekphrastic Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, and in the Ad Hoc Fiction anthologies Dandelion Years and Flash Fiction Festival Five; and forthcoming in The Dribble Drabble Review. Her work has been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award, and nominated for Best Microfiction 2023 and Best of the Net 2024. Her story Miracle Grow won the Pokrass Prize at the Bath Flash Fiction Festival held in 2022.

Author’s website: https://www.janesalmonspoetry.co.uk

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ The Weightlessness of Love, ekphrastic microfiction by Jane Salmons in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 12, March 2022); nominated by MacQ for the Best Microfiction 2023 anthology.

⚡ Passengers, ekphrastic microfiction by Jane Salmons, in Starry, Starry Night: An ekphrastic anthology inspired by Van Gogh’s masterpiece, published by The Ekphrastic Review (25 February 2022)