Annette Gagliardi 

light can be alive

like this place in my throat,

breathless and bottomless—

this articulated brightness moves

all the way through my body

exiting my fingers and toes;

my mouth full of light,

spilling out, falling all over

what I say—the words

like neon signs

in the night that float

toward the moon,

making it bigger as they rise.

Words, like search lights

skimming the ground;

the concentrated beam of

languaged luminescence

rising along with the rising

neon—floating skyward;

enunciated light,

illuminating the darkness.

Annette Gagliardi continues the journey of discovery and enlightenment. Her work has won awards and appears in on-line and in-print journals in Sweden, Canada, UK and USA. She is Poet Laureate of the League of Minnesota Poets, 2025-2027. Her second chapbook, "Caffeinated" has won both the Literary Titan and the International Impact awards.