September 2017
I work in human services, write, and teach. I live in Vermont in a conglomerate household, and I like walking around in the woods and thinking. Most recently I was published in Spillway.
Poem for a War Zone
I rub my thumb over the letters
carved almost before his life began.
Standing, I squeeze your hand –
what of us can be resurrected?
We created the kingdom of his childhood
and never found him again.
We must have driven past him
hurrying on our errands
with nothing in our hands
but what had already fallen.
For the First Attempt
Dark head propped on white pillows,
knees clapped together under white sheets,
she lists slowly to the wall
and counts tiles -
now everything must be rebuilt.
She turns back and lies
to the awkward doctor
standing by the bed rails,
his ears plugged into a song about nothing.
The Alchemist’s Retreat
The night wind blows wet clouds.
I fix my head toward the stars,
recalibrating the telescope until the sun rises.
I read the sky with my chattering bones,
not as good as the old dog I will become
in legend and in fact.
I have the scholar’s armor but not the scholar’s heart –
the tear down my daughter’s cheek and apron,
the gold of the peaches on the table framed
by the random court of my affection –
wood is charcoal and fruit, mold –
what is the element that remains
unchanged, though time and distance smear it?
Poem for a War Zone
I rub my thumb over the letters
carved almost before his life began.
Standing, I squeeze your hand –
what of us can be resurrected?
We created the kingdom of his childhood
and never found him again.
We must have driven past him
hurrying on our errands
with nothing in our hands
but what had already fallen.
For the First Attempt
Dark head propped on white pillows,
knees clapped together under white sheets,
she lists slowly to the wall
and counts tiles -
now everything must be rebuilt.
She turns back and lies
to the awkward doctor
standing by the bed rails,
his ears plugged into a song about nothing.
The Alchemist’s Retreat
The night wind blows wet clouds.
I fix my head toward the stars,
recalibrating the telescope until the sun rises.
I read the sky with my chattering bones,
not as good as the old dog I will become
in legend and in fact.
I have the scholar’s armor but not the scholar’s heart –
the tear down my daughter’s cheek and apron,
the gold of the peaches on the table framed
by the random court of my affection –
wood is charcoal and fruit, mold –
what is the element that remains
unchanged, though time and distance smear it?
© 2017 Samn Stockwell
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