NORTHEAST OHIO SPOTLIGHT

A Strong Wind Blows at the Softball Diamonds

Poetry by ​​Regis Louis Coustillac

and this is how I think
the world could end.
A girl’s small fingers
clutch the curls 
of her brother’s hair,
the toddler’s arms 
wrapped about her
waist like a bean-pole.
 
A second girl, smaller
than the first, waddles
towards her family.
The boy becomes a pearl
guarded by the clam-shell
of his two sisters.
 
One of the girls
kisses the boy’s cheek
to calm him. 
She kisses the dirt 
on the boy’s cheek, 
and her lips return—dust,
 
and this is how I think
the world could end.
Damp lips and dust.
A pearl inside a shell. 

Regis Louis Coustillac

​Regis Louis Coustillac was raised in Mentor, OH and currently lives in Cleveland. He attended Kent State University where he worked for three years as a teaching artist at the Wick Poetry Center, facilitating poetry workshops for community members in the Northeast Ohio area. His work is a reflection of the Midwest in both voice and visage. His poems have appeared in Brainchild Magazine and Isacoustic.