The rain hums like a memory
of rice thrown at weddings
before we knew the harm to birds.
Before we inadvertently passed
our life’s midpoint, as one quick exhale
snuffed the table’s votive
and the lights on the mood dimmed.
You’re recording each instance
of green this month, as it too remembers
its prospects.
Fern, wide-blade fan, disposition,
the fawn creek-side, a pedestal.
Our hours not always aligned
with those around us,
and waves look longest from at least
five stories up.
Green hydrangeas shredded
by the storm, their counterparts globing
vases on white tablecloths in great rooms
where everyone is realizing their potential.
Spreading ashes, or any sea burial,
has to be at least three nautical miles
from shore. Our devastation,
so deep.
—
Leah Poole Osowski is the author of hover over her (Kent State University Press, 2016), winner of the Wick Poetry Prize, and Exceeds Us (Saturnalia, 2023), winner of the Alma Award. Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Ninth Letter, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She was a former emerging writer in residence at Penn State Altoona and is the advisory poetry editor of Raleigh Review.
