Current
Issue
Volume 12.1
Lindsay Rockwell
—
The Democracy of Rain
When all my pretty little almosts
line up—eyes wide, shoulders squared
& this world of buttermilk & doors
makes me a culled discomfort of wonder—
mother, her bright wheels
father, a mountain of hushed tones
& my eyes wet with awkward & regret,
the moon above the switchgrass pearls her saucer self.
Mother calls her hands home.
Father calls his hands home.
I call my feet home too—
to switchgrass. To fallen nests
where an owl & minutes muscle the air
with patience. When our hands & feet return
the democracy of rain slakes us clean.
We walk all our almosts into the pearled field.
Lindsay Rockwell — poet, earthling and former oncologist—explores the shared landscape of poetry and the sacred. She’s recently published, or forthcoming in Guernica, Humana Obscura, Poetry Northwest, Poet Lore, Tupelo Quarterly, RADAR, SWWIM every day, among others. Her collection, GHOST FIRES, was published by Main Street Rag, April 2023. She is the recipient of the Andrew Glase Poetry Prize and fellowships from Vermont Studio Center and Edith Wharton/The Mount residency.
