Leaving the Island
I grew so long next to the fields
I thought I was one of the corn stalks,
stubborn & crowned
in golden floss, weathery spears.
I pushed the dirt with my palms,
shucked kernels to taste their sugar,
crush of pericarp on my tongue.
I stood sentry where mowed paths met
& spun to see each horizon
unfold: tree & barn latched
to sky. Near the dark grass
below the dike, I practiced names
all night, so I might one day tell of this:
how at dawn a dozen herons
winged over stone-frost ground,
the Willamette stopped & flowed backward,
a single car carved a path of light
away over the bridge toward town.
Grief
You find him again in spring:
under fall’s earthpack of leaves,
small soft body. To name him
something you don’t already know:
the bushes of buds grow greener
and the neighbors
take their small dog out. You do
what you have to do,
when you find him again. This time
a proper burial, though you know
it won’t last for long. This time
a nice green sheet of earth
in a valley nearby. You cry out
in a voice only the night nurses
hear, with their soft shoes
and deep-bellied sleeves.
This time, he sits under
the moss and oak leaves,
sipping, silently murmuring,
taking the days of summer
like straws in a hand,
choosing the long one,
choosing to stay.
Header photo by bensliman hassan, courtesy Shutterstock. Photo of Anna Tomlinson by RJ Howey.