Poetry

for Erin Coughlin Hollowell Glory of rain, glory of sea icesilver as a fish crow’s wings carving sunrise, gloryglory glory of moose big as a city busgrazing on rain-soaked grass, gloryof fireweed that has lost its fine fall silk to wind,glory of beluga and humpback whale invisiblefrom these downpour-beaten cliffs,glory of black spruce, mountain ash,…

We’re standing atop the hill watching streaks of sunsetfade over dimming buildings, you hold my waist frombehind as I make eye contact with a dark blue raven ina tree just beyond the precipice. Farther than the treeyou made me kneel behind as the wind lapped at mybare arms and the mosquitos came closer for the…

We stand hushed on the patio. Stars fall—brightash—between branches of the large mesquiteleaning over us as the scientist—our unexpectedguest—holds high the recording of elf owlshooting he’d magically found in his car. They’rein the saguaro, he whispers. They’ll answer. Andsilent we listen. Waiting for one then anotherowl to sound, we hear a motorcycle, then acar revving…

for Yannis Ritsos for years in exile on an island, wrote with no other witnessthan sea wind and the ranked blue waves,wrote on scraps of paper skinned from cigaretteshiding the rolled-up poems in his trouser cuffs,permitting guards to believe that his penwas for stones, for finding faces in the stonesand drawing them out, feature by…

Some days each grain of her dragsthrough unsafe air. I wrap her in stardustscarves that float around the anchors of her heavy arms, those limbs anchoringher, and me, to all the words we women dragbehind us, the ones we wish we could dust off: fat, bitch, she wishes. I reach for the starof her body, so…

She didn’t know what they were—pebbles—the soundsrolling around in her father’s mouthlike sour ball candies when he told herthey would find them. Left behindby fairies, he said, in creeksand under leaves. Her fatherwore that look that said he wasteasing, that it was all a jokebut come along anyway. Ft. Amanda,a short car ride, an adventure,and…

In the thicket that is just now considering the poignantslantlight of ebb, one blush rose hip, polished and stalwart. Matt texted me today that he misses you. Somethingparticular or just general sadness, I asked. This is the way for an extinction that cannot be reasoned with. A summerso wet and cold that even the fireweed…

My father is smaller than a potato now maybe in the bluebird’sfeather or the beak of the cactus wren but where is my mother? In myfingernail? The crowd of bushtits on the thistle-seeds probably are uncles andaunts from various boneyards with their fetuses whispering together,ensoul, from bad days when they couldn’t be saved. Someone planted…

Prologue: It’s traditional to begin by telling you this: this was once Chada’ssukdu. In the retelling it becomes my sukdu’a. For the unfamiliar, sukdu is story.Sukdu’a is a story that’s become a personal story.I’ve decided that it’s akin to how some people build familial homes. Oh this? It’s our ancestralfamily home! My greatest grandparentsbuilt it….