At what hour do we arrive, doorway trail
downwards, lake below barely lit,
a carved out bowl. We announce horse
by horse cobbling muddy indents,
rode up a day’s worth. No darkling
praises here as the first horse laps
radiant blue, vision inked. We stay
a week, some a rushing campfire,
some on cooking detail, others reporting
on yellow warblers. My mother
floats close-eyed in the one hour
of hazy sun. I recognize her
as a separate body. Give
her away, because I know (how
do I know) one day I’ll need to let her
drift to the far shore.
I whisper between
reeds to a red-haired boy.
Father assembles the tent, blows air
mattresses, repairs a hole. We three
breathe in unison. He snores. Night-
shapes appear or are they trunks
blustering bones and I wonder if bears
complain of injuries. Fury pushes against
the tent near my cough drop bag. I whisper
an incantation though it won’t work,
brush strokes to bring the unseen
forth, deliver those gone, bring
the lake back, now dry,
voices once crushed, restored.
—
Laurel Benjamin is a San Francisco Bay Area poet, active with the Women’s Poetry Salon. She curates Ekphrastic Writers and is a reader for Common Ground Review. Current publications: Pirene’s Fountain, Lily Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Taos Journal of Poetry. She is a Cider Press Review Book Award finalist, Pushcart Prize nominee, and received an Honorable Mention for the Ruben Rose Memorial Poetry Competition. Find her at: https://www.laurelbenjamin.com
