Adirondacks
My father bought a lake in memoriam of a glacier:
the tapioca simmer of his dead mother’s hum
as she sieved honey into tea.
I read her kinked hair as a bird’s nest.
If I pawed it, I’d trigger abandon.
She whistled often, the sound of roots inking silt.
My mother would have loved you.
The words that rock me to sleep.
Her moon visage follows me in cycles,
parses slats of light across my pillow.
I dream her underwater: mermaid-finned,
turnkey eyed, liquid. Salt dissolving skin.
She survives: a porcelain bird figurine
lolled on mantle. My father cried
twice: when ceramic met concrete & when
twine & glue couldn’t cradle splinters. Now
it’s him & the lake. In May he rows,
spooning the moon from the water
into a bale jar. The mountains erode to
the rhythm of his metallic clanks while I write
of her hands gardening empty rooms.
Devon Poniatowski is an English (literature) major at SUNY Geneseo. She believes in the power of art, and the importance of observing beauty. If she could befriend a fictional character, it would be Puck (Robin) from A Midsummer Night’s Dream for his spritely and mischievous whimsy.
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