Eel River Meditation
 
Above the Eel River,
a concrete bridge: every summer
we plied humid afternoons
with hickory bark canoes.

Lying on the sloped bank
we paddled between
walnuts and hickories—
we we […]

Malady
 
He’s never been sick before
skin warm and ill-fitting, moist as he sinks into me,
that exhausted root for comfort and the fear that
he’ll be declining soon.
Children know to seek this oath from thei […]

Charybdis and the River
 
Do you hear the gurgling river?
All the molecules of oxygen and hydrogen
in their special dance, choreographed,
washing memories clean,
liquid fingers wearing grooves
into the […]

I Bought Them
 
I bought them,
two big books,
fat with two lifetimes of poems,

not so much to read them,
which, over a long time, as is meant, I will do,
but just to look at,

their bigness,
heavy as […]

Mom Wants to Talk Football
On the gridiron of family life, she and I stood
the sidelines, flanking the husband and father
who, fourth and goal in the waning minutes,
always called his own number.

She, the […]

How to Grow Wild
 
Vision failing, she feels the leaves
looking for butterfly
weed, a seedling from her
greenhouse for me to take, add
to my efforts to flower
a field. Cup plant, sweet […]

The Jumping Off Place
Josephine Hopper’s comment on husband Edward’s painting, Rooms by the Sea, 1951
 
Azure waves float two rooms
           a door opens
              […]

The heavy, punishing rains have stopped for now, and I step out onto the sun-warmed deck facing our back yard. A third of the space is now a lake, and in the center of this six-inch deep water stand our bird […]

My Grandfather’s Garage, 1966
 
Steel licenses, galvanized,
nailed to the wall, black Virginia
plates, rusted and dented,

years spanning a life
on this farm, his World War,
to the second, his so […]

Promontory
 
At the overlook, we could see four states
If the fog had not rested its elephantine
Rump upon the conifers. We can barely
See each other, much less the road
Switchbacking down the side of […]

3rd place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Poetry Contest

Patina
 
The things you forget are the stupid verbal confetti of old love letters,
the weight of ancient matters settling the scales of justice around yo […]

Jennifer Sutherland is the 1st place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Poetry Contest
 
An Elegant Variation
One quiet Sunday we drove south on silver-leafed Charles Street,
ducked into one of the gingerbread wa […]

2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Poetry Contest

mi gemela

i can hear avocado
trees in the backyard,
the hum of abuela’s
sewing machine
in the kitchen.

the plastic chairs
poke the fat of our […]

Ferment
 
Orchard in February.
Branches, matted as hair, litter the rows after pruning.
Soil, strewn with old fruitfall,
soaks in last season’s rancid sun
seeped from these gnawed globes:
Ambrosias, Au […]

Swimming in Akumal
 
You could learn to live here
without ever measuring time
in linear seconds or distance
in the miles we journey.
Everything here is cyclical
and circular like the half moon
bay we […]

Sorrow
 
Sometimes I think I own sorrow
like the man who parades his macaw
up and down the shopping street,
shit on his back, smiling. The bird
is sweet and talkative, but
his wings are clipped. Sorrow […]

You’ve gotten over the idea that writing poetry is only for strange people who carry around moleskin notebooks with ribbon bookmarks. You may have even admitted to people you’ve met in airports, knowing you will […]

First Dog: A Love Song
 
You didn’t even want it. You said it was much too nervous,
inappropriate for us who had never owned a dog,
and wrong for our cold climate. It would have to wear a sweater,
we would be […]

Reno and Smiley in Verona
 
Walking not far from Juliet’s graffitied house,
a window gives its music to the alley below—
Appalachian spring tripping on love.
I hear I Wouldn’t Change You if I Could. […]

From Ice and Dust
 
All summer long, a comet
streaks, star blown and cold,
as I walk, hollow boned
thin ribbed, a scarecrow loosed

upon the night, trailing cotton.
How elastic the hands once,
thick with […]