Driftwood Vol. 1
I was privileged to be able to work with some good friends on a collection of our poetry
Margaret Lerhe
I perform a rosary on your chest,
a prayer of broken ribs.
Night of Starlings
Tonight fell on us like black starlings.
This rain—a constant murmur,
Winter on the Islands
Winter on the Islands.
Maps of the Market Garden and the Memory of Your Passage
In my maps of the market garden
I always forgot to include your journeys.
Fog on the Juan de Fuca
Bloated tankers, lying in the starboard fog—
cranes, mountains of coal.
The Morning I Wish to Wake to
To see the sequoias as plaintiffs,
angry litigants calling their cases
Marlin and the Timeless Steppe
“Let me show you my favourite place.”
We left after morning coffee,
Marlin and The Dark Night of the Soul
In the evening, trees silhouette like shattered veins,
white of blood and first light’s frost.
Marlin and the Great Migration
During the night, the great migration began.
Marlin, my faithful ‘89 Toyota, was jostled and shifted
Marlin and the Teeth of Winter
Out of a quiet and hardly seen patter
of freezing rain, beating a pattern of poissonce,
Marlin and the Inland Ocean
It rained so hard that in the morning
my car had drifted to parts unknown.