By Mercedes Lawry
Wind in the wheat.
She hears the sounds,
a grieving similar to her own.
Thready clouds obscure
the sun, making a milky light.
She walks and walks
through the ebbing hours.
This time has teeth and pulls
at her bones. She would rather
not know this place
or the days, one after another.
She would rather go back
but that is a time
not to be known again
and so she walks, surrounded
by the ragged shush and tick,
the spooling wind
licking her face.
Copyright Lawry 2012
Mercedes Lawry has had poems published in such journals as Poetry, Natural Bridge, Nimrod, and Prairie Schooner as well as SHARK REEF. She's published two chapbooks - “There are Crows in My Blood” and “Happy Darkness.” She was a finalist for the 2017 Airlie Press Prize and the 2017 Wheelbarrow Book Prize and has received the Vachel Lindsay Poetry Prize from Twelve Winters Press. Lawry has received honors from the Seattle Arts Commission, Jack Straw Foundation, Artist Trust and Richard Hugo House, been a seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee and held a residency at Hedgebrook. She's also published short fiction as well as stories and poems for children.
All work by Mercedes Lawry
