August 2024
Bio Note: Growing up, I lived in six countries before settling in the States, an experience that increased my curiosity about people and places, and though shyness made books my best friends, they promoted a love of story and description that led me to writing. I am the author of Canticle for Remnant Days (2024) and co-author of Walking the Sunken Boards (2019), both published by Pond Road Press. I coedit the online poetry journal, ൪uartet (www.quartetjournal.com). I'd like to think my scrappy nature comes from being born three months premature weighing one pound eight ounces, and living to boast about it, though my twin is my opposite, so who knows?
Ferry
After “Return to Home” by Maja Senda
This is the spirit boat I want when I die:
vivid green, low slung, a bow that juts
forward to claim where we go, almost
becalmed; only a wave-washed hull
and the ferry’s creased reflection
disturb what’s limitless. People
perch on the foredeck’s yellow pilot
house, on the flat roof above benches
where few lounge. In the stern, others
lean forward, almost talking. Terns in flight
make air the color of water, visible.
Three clouds like a small flotilla float.
Onboard, strangers who breathe
their last when I will. What a fellowship
of emptiness this quiet fills.
Another Way to Land
I’ve been falling lately, roots
and throw rugs knocking me
down, the ground hard and familiar
to my feet, now familiar
to my face. Once I trusted gravity
to hold me upright, running
into marriage, the hard measure
children take of who you are.
Last week, I held out my arm to
a Harris hawk, wings wide as
grace landing to feed. Before
falling, earth was a place
to step on. Now it has bled into me
branch and feather, flower
where death will carry me.
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