Variegated sky at dawn. Saffron light from clouds across
hills down stone walls to the lone blackbird among blood-
root. Frayed seagrass, its jade stroke in the shape of your hand
to stitch tide to shore. The last person you mattered to. The old
woman bent and forever waiting in the bus shelter. What you’d go
to the farthest border for. Your next kiss. The attic where you left the boy
doll in the wicker carriage. The cut-glass ping as rimed branches
shard the forest ice-house of memory to steep love, that plaited frond,
in the summit of Kailash, where the hand of Tara touches you into green.
Alexandra Burack, a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, has recent poems in Pangyrus, The Ekphrastic Review, ucity review, and Metphrastics Issue 3, among other venues. She serves as a Poetry Editor for Iron Oak Editions; a Poetry Reader for The Los Angeles Review, The Adroit Journal, and West Trade Review/Trill, and works currently as a freelance editor, writing coach, and tutor. alexandraburack.com