Friday, January 2, 2015

Poem for the Weekend: Judy Halebsky

 

Judy Halebsky is the author of two poetry collections, Sky=Empty, which won the New Issues prize and was a finalist for the California Book Award, and Tree Line, which is new and discussed here.

On the Coast

by Judy Halebsky

I forget how to measure with my hands
the length between the root cellar, the room at the back of the house, the
clothesline and the shore
 
I forget the dream fish, the tooth fairies, the angel's wings on me in the night
 
I forget how to nestle the worry
up into my lungs
tuck my memories into dark crevasses
with the tobacco and stale smoke
 
how I moved so far away, why I didn't study biology, where were the babies
when these weary bones could stay up all night
I try to remember
the dry texture of breadfruit in my mouth
the sand shifting into the shape of my body
our shadows in the night while I push you to push me
out into the water
that lasts forever
and then disappears

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"As soon as we express something, we devalue it strangely. We believe ourselves to have dived down into the depths of the abyss, and when we once again reach the surface, the drops of water on our pale fingertips no longer resemble the ocean from which they came...Nevertheless, the treasure shimmers in the darkness unchanged." ---Franz Kafka