Issue Forty-One - Winter 2023

August

By Kathleen Holliday

For My Siblings

As if drought could ever empty it
the well of grief glimmers full
topped up like a bitter drink
we never ordered.

That last August on the farm
the water level in the well so low
we dipped buckets down
into the galvanized tank
beaded silver like sweat.

As if we could ever carry enough
water back to that house on fire.

Copyright Holliday 2023

Kathleen Holliday lives on an island in the Salish Sea. Her poems have appeared in The Bellingham Review, The Blue Nib Literary Magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, New Ohio Review, Nimrod International Journal, Poet Lore, Poetry Super Highway, SHARK REEF, The Write Launch and other journals. She is a graduate of Augsburg University, Minneapolis, MN. Her first chapbook, Putting My Ash on the Line, was published by Finishing Line Press, 2020; her second, Boatman, Pass By, by Finishing Line Press, 2023.

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