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Lake with ripples at sunset

One Poem by Holly Thorpe

My lungs are ancient lakes

I breathe deeply,
agitate the silt at the bottom,
exhale cloudy sunbeams
and fish scales and
rotted leaves.

In ancient lakes
the water is warmer.
Ancient lakes outlive their
glaciers, outlive their
storm clouds,
outlive most of us.
I will not
outlive most of us.

Heavy in my chest
are logs and stones
hundreds of years older than me.
They are unmovable.
Maybe they are why
I am unmovable.

I have been here
a long time.
All that time floats
inside of me
preserved
in frigid water.

There is so much
ancient in me
I can’t touch.

When I inhale
only the surface ripples.

 

 

 

Holly ThorpeHolly Thorpe (she/her) is a poet and graduate student earning her Ph.D. in Education at Seattle Pacific University. She works in higher education and as a freelance writer in North Central Washington, where she lives with her partner and many pets and plants. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Eastern Washington University.

Header photo by Tony Cordaro, courtesy Pixabay.