The Year of the Wood Sheep
I once lived measured and cut, rigid among fish. I read the same books over and
over; I ate oats in bed. Then came the Year of the Splash. Then came the Year
of the Fog. And the Storm. Then the Year
of Forgetting.
This is the year I recover from the blast.
A spinning globe leads my way as I track Aurora Borealis, as I learn to speak in
tongues and lick the paws of those who’ve left me.
For me
the redwoods quake, the shark swims and the baby says uh oh. Gracing spaces,
I drop a shadow as big as anyone
casts, then bigger. I will not
ask myself how to read in the dark. Or how your mouth, silent as a cat’s,
spoke to me how the only way I’ve ever heard it: there you are there there
you are.
Published July 2021, The Driftwood Press Literary Journal