New Moon in Winter Dusk-Night Sky

Russell Willis

Fiery crescent

clinging to a dustball

perfect in its roundness,

transient in its inconstancy.

Surely a mirage, or optical illusion

planted in the dusk-night sky, a shade of

emptiness, darkness, substance, richness; mercury

blended with dark chocolate and licorice and merlot.

Flash Issue 5

Russell Willis has been profiled in THE POET Magazine and published in over twenty-five online and print journals and fifteen anthologies. Russell grew up in and around Texas, was vocationally scattered throughout the Southwest and Great Plains for two decades, and finally settled in Vermont with his wife, Dawn.