Vikki C.
Winter 2026 | Poetry
Of That We Make Music
Desire is the low chord—
sky before snow, noon rays lassoing
the necks of rare flowers—
your thirst stretched canyon wide.
The route was made by our motion.
Pleasure markings across a future tense.
Where God had the same number of bones
as the man I loved with the windows down.
Where I am my mother’s daughter,
draped back to back with beauty.
The last time we faced each other was death,
& no flood came to wash us apart.
Fingers extended to the same anthem,
a whole summer formed out of devotion.
I tried to leave that city where people
strained to hear the harmonies—
because it is problematic to isolate.
Eating alone, mouth stuffed with a banquet.
A full vocabulary for grief.
My mother’s daughter says the secret is
behind the shutters, painted grey like your eyes.
In slow clouds that pasteurise as we lie,
pointing to where we’ve been.
Patrol cars at dawn, picking up the leftovers.
Placing them in custody
till we notice what is missing.
Each counterpoint takes me closer.
I play to an orchard of trees
their white shine, a late applause.
All the fruit I ate without paying for
is a crime too, but to tell is worse.
You are curious, I understand—
like the man with no clothes
in front of my full-length mirror.
Like the beat of rain against the exits,
trying to match your heart.
Of all the codas, silence is not my concern
—only the people it surrounds.
Those who leave early, thinking music is
something we own—& get to hand down.
Vikki C. is a poet, essayist and musician whose writing appears internationally in venues like The Inflectionist Review, EcoTheo Review, Grain Magazine, The Blue Mountain Review, Psaltery & Lyre, Sweet Literary, ONE ART Poetry, Ice Floe Press, Sunday Mornings at the River, Black Bough Poetry, Dust Poetry, New Verse Review and Cable Street, among others. Her work has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and the Orison Best Spiritual Literature, and she was shortlisted in The Bridport Prize 2025. She is the author of two poetry collections including Where Sands Run Finest (DarkWinter Press, 2024), plus the hybrid collaboration In The Blueprint of Her Iris (Ice Floe Press, 2025). Vikki serves as Contributing Editor at The Winged Moon Magazine. Linktree: linktr.ee/vikki_c._author