—In memory of the great auk
The auk walks beside me up the hill.
I slow my pace for her. We weave
between the sidewalk’s fissures,
its small quakes. It is spring,
cherry trees buttering a light wind.
Last night I drank so much poison
I broke the red arm of my glasses
like a little child. Saw my self
as I never see her, toddling
along the furred edge of Lake Eerie
like there was no end to that sound.
Unafraid, most of all, of herself,
how the taste on her lips shifted
as the lake lapped them. They were
beloved, parted like an egg’s
burst of birth-sour & wet shining.
Who should we thank but water—
for how it poured out a bright
mirror below the egg to soften
the stone, for the way that I float
no matter how I try. Petal blown
to my cheek, the wet in both of us
holding, for we are mostly
the same thing, for how the ebb
where the auk is missing
will not let her shape go.
—
Erin L. McCoy’s poetry collection, Wrecks, is forthcoming from Noemi Press. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Pleiades, Conjunctions, and other publications. Her work has been selected for the Best New Poets anthology twice, and she was a finalist for the Missouri Review’s Miller Audio Prize. Her website is erinlmccoy.com.
