Even the Sunlight
This spring sewage fills up the basement
& the plumber asks me if I understand why
this is happening Yes I say though none of this
makes sense not the pump failing nor the contaminated
quality thickening even the sunlight All the days
in April arrive pre-sliced like bread I consume them
diligently one after another Upstairs lately there is a grinding
metallic sound though it is only the bedroom window
that won’t latch but vibrates insistently in the wind a kind of bird
swinging on a caged trapeze while the rain stuffed awkwardly
into bloated clouds skulks across the sky Still
each flower is never enough the stalk ringed by dead
petals a private burial mound & the daffodils
with their star-faces are feeble constellations
to steer by I do not understand why the seasons insist
on lurching on like sticks thrown in a stream
Just as I don’t know why today when a fawn
stepped in front of me I wanted to get down
on my knees on the pavement to kiss its velvet
why I wanted to cry
Penelope Writes Odysseus
The grass is unruly since you left
instead of foot trails
it is all one sweeping path
to the sea the sharp cudgels
of sheep hooves make no marks
they bleat themselves hoarse
at the waves Telemachus
prefers to lie in the fields rather than run
through the village with other boys
his birthday last week sixteen years old
with your hard hands though not the white scars
that must now be spreading across your skin
like lightning I unravel
threads nightly that I pray will not
be your funeral shroud
though it would be worse
to have no body at all
How long could bloated
and battered flesh survive the salt
of the sea? And what of the unmarked
soul bobbing in its wake?
Yes the suitors come
I do not care for them but they are
a company of sorts they neglect
to ask me if I ever want to lose
myself in the overgrown grasses
I neglect to tell them I dream
of it often my body a shipwreck
sun-blazed bone breaking
into sand and the ocean
unreproachable in the distance
Waiting I am a woman encased in stone
a film of marble obscures my eyes
my hands lie cupped and heavy when I remember
how you built our bed I see it all wrong
In that time before the war I watch
as you kiss my feet and pluck the living tree
from the soil the roots writhing
above the earth the mud
clinging to them like blood
Lily Emerick lives in the Willamette Valley, Oregon where she writes poetry and works on an organic farm. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture and BA in Spanish from the University of Oregon. She is an emerging writer and has previously been published in The Broken City.
