‘Flesh Currency’ & ‘Cosmic Game of Catch’

Nicole Farnsley is a photographer and art director from Louisville, KY. She is pursuing a BFA in communication design from Washington University in St. Louis. Her work has been featured in various publications, including Armour Magazine and Strike St. Louis. You can see more of her work on Instagram @nickeltookit or on her website nicolefarnsley.com.

Flesh Currency

A child’s sandal and a little doll

A little bike and a deflated ball

Heaps of rubble

A plane’s low rumble

The screams, the shouts

‘Run! Get down!’

Soldiers scared stiff

Their best friends gone limp

They have to keep running

But there’s nowhere to go

The shots just keep ringing

I step over puddles of blood

Men’s bodies are steaming

But the warmth doesn’t come

Why aren’t my legs working?

My hands have gone numb

Oh, I guess I’m falling

I hit the ground with a thud

Cosmic Game of Catch

An untied canoe drifts endlessly from bank to bank

And doves flutter away at the sound of our footsteps

The grass brushes against my ankles

And my fingers sift through your hair 

Everything around us is stagnant

But in an infinite flow  

A certain gleam in your eye sends me off 

To a place full of insignificant but grandiose things

Where ants hold all the power

And warheads are but grains of sand

With hearts thumping tremendously

We feel the very space around us shake

Beauty of our own creation erupts 

Spewing passion, heat, and life

Stars fizzle in and out of existence

Bursting out into the depths of emptiness

We playfully cast galaxies at one another

Colliding and shattering into billions of tiny fragments 

A cosmic game of catch 

Where the universe is our playground

Solomon Fraga is an aspiring author and poet. He has recently had his first poetry publications in the June 2024 issue at The Write Launch and in the book ‘Seven Jumbled Words’ at Poets Choice.