Amy Riddell

If there is a parallel universe

I want to roll in its mud,
inch as naked as an earthworm

through topsoil so fertile
I give birth to another me.

How else to sift
the subterranean logic of why

I circle and circle the face
of a clock only to find

myself on the worm’s journey
to its own demise.

After all, I have never seen
a clock clasp its two hands

to put a halt to time’s calculations,
never doubted that the ticking

of existence overwrites
our penciled math,

physic’s machinery unseen
by all those telescopes

pointed skyward to decode
pinpricks of eternal light

while I contemplate  
a shawl of cobwebs

greying the bowed heads
of dried roses.

Amy Riddell has three poetry collections, Prayer of Scalpel & Ash, a chapbook (Rockwood Press), Bullets in the Jewelry Box, a full-length collection (FutureCycle), and Narcissistic Injury, a chapbook (Pudding House). A Pushcart nominee, Amy’s poems have appeared in various journals, including The Philly Poetry Chapbook Review, The Inflectionist Review, Rust & Moth, SoFloPoJo, Rat’s Ass Review, Misfit Magazine, Prairie Schooner, Black Warrior Review, and Birmingham Poetry Review.