after a photograph by Katie Pearce
The girl lies in her stark
white dress. The grass
the unreal green velvet
of spring. March buds
push from the trees.
Everything becoming—
everything alive
except the girl.
She is a pearl on display
in a jeweler’s window.
Clouds dapple the ground
around her. Years from now
she will be a story
that haunts this hill.
Shaindel Beers is the author of two full-length poetry collections, A Brief History of Time (2009) and The Children’s War and Other Poems (2013), both from Salt Publishing. She teaches at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, OR, and is the poetry editor of Contrary Magazine. Learn more at shaindelbeers.com.
Katie Pearce is a 19-year-old self-taught photographer from Pendleton, OR. She has hosted her own gallery show at Pendleton Center for the Arts and has received a regional prize in photography from the same organization. Her photography can be viewed on her Flickr.
Pine Hills Review 