Charlotte Hamrick
Heat Lightning
—Inspired by Studies on Twilight Phenomena, after Krakatoa (1888)
A strange bed sets a flickering
stage, transposed in reflected
light of oranges and golds.
Heat lightning disappears
like confronted ghosts
frightened of a full stare.
You brought me to this place
that was only a mirage in my mind,
a shimmer behind clouds.
Now it surrounds me with its
strangeness, chameleon days slipping
through my hands while
heat lightning engulfs us in flames.
Charlotte Hamrick is author of Offset Melodies, a chapbook of micro memoir and hybrid prose included in ELJ Editions’ Grieving Hope collection (2025). Her poetry, prose, and photography have been widely published in literary magazines and anthologies. She writes from New Orleans where she drinks lots of coffee and wrangles a menagerie of rescued pets. More at charhamrick.com.