Amy Pollard

AFTERSHOCK

Bone-cold water
scrapes away flakes of skin
beneath his fingernails
and expunges crimson
from his palms.

He swears it was a shuffle of the cards,
a roll of the dice,
a change in the weather—
anything but him.


Gerald So reads "Aftershock":




Amy confesses: "Not all homicides are created equal. Voluntary manslaughter is a "heat of passion" killing, in which the perpetrator may not have originally intended to kill the victim, but ultimately does under reasonable provocation. In this piece, I aimed to depict the aftershock of this crime."

AMY POLLARD is a poet, writer, and student. She edits Brevity Poetry Review and maintains the writing blog, Amy's Pen. Her work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Emerge Literary Journal, Eunoia Review, The Copperfield Review, Linguistic Erosion and Smashed Cat Magazine.