Ornamented
What have I clutched
in my hand?
My ring a tiny book
open. Its spine
and my fingerbone
point to the same
precipice.
My fingers coil in.
Part of me anemone.
What have I spit
back into the world?
I am a bank
and a prison
and will free everything
I hold
like a dandelion
casting its lot
with the future.
Chryss Yost is the author of Mouth & Fruit and two chapbooks. She is co-editor of Gunpowder Press in Santa Barbara, where she served as Poet Laureate from 2013-2015. Her work has been widely anthologized.