for Emma
They are nocturnal, you know.
My four-year-old niece told me so—
and she’s got the 411 on the rainbow.
I search the hollows of my memory
for the origins of my own discovery:
crooning creatures made of mulberries,
cotton candy clouds, and emerald grass,
freshly cut in summer’s mythic morass
stretching across childhood’s hourglass.
But unicorns don’t live in the past, silly:
they only dwell where we can’t see—
like the sneaky souls of day lilies.
They never come out to play en masse;
good luck spying one through a looking glass.
Mostly, they find humans are too crass.
Yet, some nights, when the sky turns indigo,
the moon sets enchanted eyes aglow
and galloping waves cast wet shadows.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 3.
Genevieve Creedon is a poet, scholar, and nonfiction writer. She earned her MFA from the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine and her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan. Born in Montreal, she has lived in Connecticut, New York, Maine, Michigan, NJ, and most recently, Indiana, and enjoys exploring the worlds she encounters with her canine companions.
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