Leigh Anne Hornfeldt
Pulled Under
Ask me why I’ve never learned to swim.
I’ll tell you water is a liar. Flattened
on my honeymoon with a lung
of salt water. Even my dreams trick
me like a soft lullaby. I prefer sky.
Maybe because it’s always there,
even behind clouds. The sun warms
my back, even now, despite all the shit
I’ve done. Undeserving as I am.
Last night I dreamt
water again, O great faithless mirror
that loves me and loves me and loves me
into abyss.
~
Beyond the One I Knew
As a child space documentaries made me feel safest.
In that time of not growing, stagnant station,
it was a galaxy swallowing another that gave me hope.
If things were real bad, when the deepness felt
too far, there were always
supernovas for relief, black holes
for peace. When I was old enough
to realize that star stuff
was poised behind sky it was game over.
I wanted to absolve gravity
of its tired hold and slowly lift one toe
at a time, float past the stratosphere,
into the raging paradise beyond the one I knew.
~
Darkness to Clean Bone
Tonight groans under
late October’s moon, no matter
the rainstorm wishes tucked
in her sleeves. She worked
the garden, her sister swirling up
behind the sheets on the line.
Dusk understands mystery isn’t
thick nights and valleys,
how she should’ve waited
for the darkness to clean bone. The way
all nights are written
till all that’s left is sun,
a wound not yet grown over.
If the sky has any place in this
let it be between palms
that once belonged to the ground.
Let it be carved
out of memory
and moonlight.
~
~return to poetry home