When it first appears, you barely notice.
You can’t see how it drifts into the room,
settles around you, quiet and watchful.
You must have been looking beyond that ledge
where the fir trees waver in gusts—
the canopy multitudinous, yet moving
as one, relieved of the single self, as if
each lifetime had arrived there lost
in the evergreens. After a while,
you know it for the way it speaks
in your own voice, the familiar words
surprising through your open mouth—
O, how you are whole despite the hollowing,
taking in, with each breath, the exact
fulfillment of your need. What existed before?
Now deep inside of yourself
soft tissue swells, joints stiffening
from the storm approaching. And you lean
into it—or does it lean you?—the way
those hills hold up that valley, you slope
your head on its shoulder, resting the
burden of yourself. Look up.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 1.
Sarah Anne Stinnett teaches at Berklee Online and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University and an ALM in Dramatic Arts from Harvard University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Plume, Palette Poetry, On the Seawall, The Shore, Barely South Review, Summerset Review, Red Letter, and elsewhere.
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