I’m thrilled to share that my new book Crossing will be published with Down East Books on October 15th. You can pre-order through Down East today. Thank you to everyone who helped me bring this book together. So excited to see it come to fruition.
poetry
Poem for Paula
It’s been seven days
that have passed,
in this world
without you.
And I’m still searching,
for your face,
scrolling for memories
in the dark.
It was Fall when we began,
our stained hands,
tipping trays.
He’s cute you whispered,
a friendly aside.
The openings when
you showed up,
you always showed up,
always knew that
it mattered.
Later, Houston.
Turell at dawn,
Twombly by lunch,
Rothko in the afternoon.
A stolen day
Just for us..
Summer, binding books,
frustrated with the folding,
with the exactness of the making.
You took what you needed,
leaving the rest,
making it yours
uniquely, brilliantly,
perfectly
yours.
New Orleans in December, .
A balm of dusty beignets
on a cold afternoon.
Last month, of you,
the only mention —
It’s a drag, you said,
but I’m doing okay,
I just get really tired.
And I believed you,
about the okay part.
A shared vision —
my words colliding
with your blues, ochres, silver.
our expanding constellations
on the page.
I’ll do it soon. I said.
Weeks passed.
I heard you, at the end, saying hi,
at the end, I heard you.
Not knowing,
it was the last time.
And in my diary,
my note, too late:
- poem for Paula.
Landfall Review - Photobook Journal
Thank you to Douglas Stockdale and the team at Photobook Journal for this considered and thoughtful review. It means so much when someone truly appreciates and understands your work. What an honor to be included here.
“Her poems are printed on reverse of a French-fold semi-translucent vellum pages, so reading the poetry is like experiencing words that are lost in a gentle fog. This hazy and indistinct fog is also common to the Maine coastline and adjacent islands in the off-season. Pages of her beautiful poetry are layered over equally lyrical black and white photographs that appear to be ghostly images situated in the distance behind her text. This is a brilliant metaphoric book design feature that creates multiple layers about the potential readings of her thoughtful narrative”. Douglas Stockdale - Photobook Journal.
Hot Off The Press
It has been such a pleasure to work with the folks at Datz press on my book Landfall. Last week they sent me this video of the work in progress!
Sleek as an Otter
in Poetry
Sleek as an otter
your fishy flesh flashes
quick silver in the hot light of noontime.
In the murky dark your skin stands stark against it,
before disappearing once again.
You are
in your element.
Undeniable.
There is no you, no it, no other.
Just light, movement, splash and sinew.
You slip through my fingers.
Just when I thought I had you
you are gone.
Longing to Breathe
in Poetry
Eyes tight shut
deep breath
I pinch my nose.
Now. Now!
I leap.
Legs wide
elbows out.
I am
suspended,
before I fall and fall
and then
water rushes up to meet me.
I am under.
Sucked into
murky depths of
muddy blackness.
Knees buckle to break my fall,
mud squeezes through my toes,
I push now,
up and up,
I kick and fight for the light.
Sensing the surface I feel
the light on my face,
the water warmer and
my face meets the air.
Oh the air! I gasp.
Exhilaration rips through my chest
and at last I breathe,
deeply, longingly, I breathe.
Floating now,
water billows about me,
holding me,
I surrender.
Before Thinking
in Poetry
It was such a pitiful cry
like something animal,
a mewling.
We did not know
at first.
Then we ran,
our hearts knowing,
our legs moving
before thinking.
Twisted and frightened
you lay crumpled.
Like a pile of laundry
left outside in the rain,
grass-stained and sodden-wet,
all of a boy in a fearful jumble,
hard to piece together.
We gathered you up
and carried you in.
We iced your bruises,
and fed you chocolate.
All tenderness and efficiency,
we felt carefully
for breakages.
Today you fell too far from the tree,
but tomorrow you will climb again.
We will hold our breath
and try not to be watchful
for tomorrow you will climb again.
Vulpes vulpes
in Poetry
Softly, he pads through the brush,
snout forward, tail low,
sniffing the air.
His hunger is sharp,
metallic on his tongue.
Within, a low rumble of unease
disturbs the roost.
Still somnolent they stir.
Feathers tremble as fear folds in
like the evening mist.
He sees them now, his pulse quickens.
Salivating he starts to pant,
smelling the promise of a
belly full.
Careworn
in Poetry
At the very bottom of the
embroidery box
lies a tangled mess of thread.
The skeins are loose,
no longer tightly bound.
The ends frayed,
colors fatally faded.
Careworn hands that
once held family together,
stitch by stitch,
now struggle to straighten.
She smoothes her skirt upon her knee.
Staring absently, she recalls a life
negligent with its neglect
of the necessary.
She sees that now.
What mattered.
Picking at a loose thread
she tries to tie it off,
to make it right.
The Call
in Poetry
I’m glad you rang.
That we talked in bright
and sunlit tones,
exchanging our
How are yous?
and
What’s the news?
No-one would guess what
lies beneath our
cheer.
The weight of silence
feels stone-cold.
We skip perilously by and
do not stop.
You really do not know,
no-one calls me Sally
anymore.