Perfect Kernel by Mary Stike
“Perfect Kernel” by Mary Stike On the house roof, the mild November wind blows my hair as fine as spider’s breath across my face and I find on the rough grey shingles’ surface, a perfect kernel of bright yellow corn. I know my spirit sister visits me, watches me and leaves her golden gift of sustenance and care. Above, a crow, in ascendance in his own web that takes in our garden, scavenged stalks cut down...
Glide by Ginny Mahar
“Glide” by Ginny Mahar I walked out the back door of the house, fifteen years old with a pair of white leather ice skates looped over my shoulder. Down the hill and through the valley of the yard, I passed remnants of a snowman in a heap amid a Michigan-winter’s worth of snow. Beyond, a wall of long-needled pines opened into a meadow. Long coral ribbons of the day’s last light wove through the sky:...
Coastline Forecast: February by Claudia McGhee
“Coastline Forecast: February” by Claudia McGhee We frozen women hear the dogged beat of thickened waves through rotten, tunneled snow. We read on shale the grey veneer of sleet, in the blackened scrawl of seaweed, we know. The thickened waves through rotten, tunneled snow hammer our shores with mandatory pain. In the blackened scrawl of seaweed, we know the sharp edge. The slap of thunder and rain hammer our...
The Voyage Out: A Poem by Marian O’Brien Paul
“The Voyage Out: A Poem*” (a forced collaboration) by Marian O’Brien Paul I. The river Sometimes the river is an opulent purple or mud-colored or a sparkling blue like the sea A straw floats past, caught in an iridescent circle swims in the well of a tear Words strike her ear like the drop of a straw or a stick stroke or the impact on river water of a solitary tear With eyes as unreflecting as water...
Swash Zone by Nancy Carol Moody
“Swash Zone” by Nancy Carol Moody Breathing is primary; speech, secondary. Absent breath, speech does not occur. If the woman cannot breathe, she cannot scream. seafoam breaking on the shoreline a young girl, giggling The drowning woman extends her arms outward so that she may push down on the surface of the water, an action which forces her body upward, permitting her to breathe. This movement is not...
Trying to Return by Sandy Gillespie
“Trying to Return” by Sandy Gillespie The ledge is deep enough to sit on, wide enough for one. Damp ground, soft with layered leaves, is chill beneath me. A wood stove somewhere near breathes birch into the midnight sky — false sense of warmth. A full moon hangs cold light from heaven, a blaze of white to mark the river’s passing. I remember April’s jumbled crush of ice — the push of...
River Broken Story by Molly Scott
“River Broken Story” by Molly Scott A river runs between the ragged edges of my broken story Its blessing is its silence But when desire and longing rise up in me like a high wind keening never ever in my heart, and when the ghosts of gone loves jangle in the current like loosened stones, I run distracted on both sides of myself, wild, tearing my hair, believing everything and nothing, seeing rift and not the...
Valley River by Ethel Mays
“Valley River” by Ethel Mays See it running through fields of alfalfa and interloping wild oats, chasing after the sound of tight gut strummed over exotic woods crafted by the ones who know the music that must be played for the heart disappearing into green turning to sun beaten gold, valley floor the sacred anvil of the hammering sun, birds in flight with the ghosts of childhood memories: legs browned by...
Oceans by Shirley Plummer
“Oceans” by Shirley Plummer what is soluble or separable enters the oceans from a stream that empties into the sea from a lake, if lacking outlet soaking into the earth seeping through emerging in rivulets or evaporating into the sky falling as rain on water falling as rain on land rainwashed dust and smoke, even sand is moved by the sea and the edge of one sea blends into the next You, love, may be in the...
On a Highway of the Pacific Coast by Cheryl Buchanan
“On a Highway of the Pacific Coast” by Cheryl Buchanan Each of us arrives here, naked and blind. Screaming the very same thing. Follow the deep breath of the ocean inside you in and out again. ____________________ Share your response to this work, in any form, here Cheryl Buchanan’s Artist Statement: Cheryl Buchanan is an attorney from Los Angeles who earned her MFA while teaching Writing...
Bird Women of Wells-next-the-Sea by Ingrid Jendrzejewski
“Bird Women of Wells-next-the-Sea” by Ingrid Jendrzejewski They lie in flocks on the beach, tangled amidst the seaweed, their sinewy, sun-stained bodies sprawled amidst sand and terry cloth. They watch the ships with unblinking eyes, nictitating membranes twitching with the breeze that comes in from the sea. Their limbs are wet with oils, and the smells of herring and coconut emanate from their...
Almost Awake by Molly Scott
“Almost Awake” by Molly Scott After all that who is this? Still on my feet after the woven sea recedes whispering how it almost knocked me down, whispering how it will be back Barefooted at the brink, Sand moves through my toes grain by grain Standing in place I turn to see what’s gone and what is newly given. Now that the waves are quiet I see the sea has pushed the landscape of my skin into these valleyed...
Ama by Nikki Russian
“Ama” by Nikki Russian The clear water ripples as the small clan of Ama dive with glinting daggers, lungs filled with enough air to reach the deep seabed. The bright sun streams reflections across their strong, naked bodies, darkened from a life under the sea. Scars fleck their skin from sharp fins and coral shards. Under the water, their eyes open in the salt, watching and waiting for their prey. They dart...
Against the Tide by Janet Thomas
“Against the Tide” by Janet Thomas The morning is balmy and still. A woman in a floral bathing cap and thick white bath robe walks towards the sea. Her gait is slow and measured, the walking sticks an extra set of limbs. Fifteen metres from the water’s edge she lets the sticks fall and drops the robe from her shoulders. Her limbs are weathered driftwood; the pale green bathing suit clings to her like the too...
Kantan Tasi, Song of the Sea by Mary Therese Perez Hattori
“Kantan Tasi, Song of the Sea” by Mary Therese Perez Hattori EKUNGOK LISTEN to kantan tåsi the song of the sea mañaina, in sotto voce murmurs send wisdom in sea foam power atop waves that embrace the shore salty sea spray kisses across my face EKUNGOK LISTEN Minetgot, Guinaiya, Lina’la Strength, Love, Life Minetgot, Guinaiya, Lina’la Strength, Love, Life delivered by ocean currents umbilical...
Song Eater by Ruth Thompson
“Song Eater” by Ruth Thompson It’s rich here— flesh, bone, nice bits falling. Comes my manta shape— Song Eater, me— I swallow what remains to be said. I heard her letting go. Then the noise of voracious worms. But potential music still clouds around her. I come to gullet that— until the sponge of me is full with it. Then I swim up, swollen as a wave— you can see me out here if you look— curved like a...
About the Ocean by Ginny Bitting
“About the Ocean” by Ginny Bitting What I want to tell you is that the ocean is not so scary once you decide to go to sea. If you stand on the beach and only watch the waves crash on the shore you will want to hide, but if you gather the courage to leave solid ground, you can ride them out over the great chasm where their violence will subside. You will float toward a horizon wide enough to swallow your fear...
Echoes by Caroline LeBlanc
“Echoes” by Caroline LeBlanc On an evening like this the sun spreads the taste of pomegranate after its orb is carved into rough caverns. The chambers, once opened drip wine so sweet-bitter we promise ourselves always, always to drink the thing its crimson echoes mention. after Rumi ____________________ Share your response to this work, in any form, here Caroline LeBlanc,...
The Sun Does Not Set by Mai-Lon Gittelsohn
“The Sun Does Not Set” by Mai-Lon Gittelsohn My friend says, The sun does not set! You stand on a crust of earth that revolves away from the sun. I whimper like a baby afraid that when mama leaves, she won’t come back. I want to go on watching the sun sink, a glass of wine in my hand and you by my side. I cling to the setting of the sun with the same passion that makes me believe my heart will beat tomorrow...
The Way I See It by Diane Lefer
“The Way I See It” by Diane Lefer When hundreds of small black birds tremble the water’s skin like vermin you know you’ve got a jaundiced eye. Besides which you’ve got transmission lines on rust hills. Dusty tamarisk. The wind. And black, barren the mountains. Dwarfed, mere hills as though geologic liposuction reduced them from the center long ago. By you, of course I mean me. And...
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Witness Nov 29, 2024
