Joannie Stangeland
Written on the Water
I send my words out like slender fish
glinting in the surf of time and weather.
To the ocean: a flash of fin and scale
that vanishes into brine.
Or, in quiet hours, lines might arrive,
a shoal of ink splashed across a page.
Delicate nets might draw
water bills, rejection slips, mysteries
on a postcard from Madrid.
Phrases may return from the sea
in the season of rains, run through metaphors,
brush the moon’s old face.
They may whisper histories
of tributaries, tranquil pools
in the deepest hour before morning,
when you turn to me in sleep
and the small wet breaths open everywhere.
Joannie Stangeland’s chapbook Weathered Steps was published by Rose Alley Press. A Steady Longing for Flight won the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Her poems have also appeared in print journals, online, and on the bus.
Page(s) 42
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