A New Poem!

I'm not full of much compelling chatter this week, and I’m itching to work on a new writing project and get some work done on my rug, so in lieu of a proper post, here is a poem I wrote recently. It’s the first poem I’ve written in a while, and it's an experimentation with longer lines. Let me know what you think.

The Odyssey

This is the year I swam

length by length back into my body.

I swam with smooth sinuous strokes and tireless limbs.

I swam without

faith, or a way to mark time. I swam in the

void the sea swallowed whole. I swam in soundless

solitary, stupefying, terrible, and swift.

Now I rise like a heron in the midnight pond.

My spine is infinite, my bones divine.

Upon re-entry, I find my flesh

intact. It is worshipful, this vessel. Its

storm of neurons, its earthen feet, the prayer of my hips, my

heart’s cauldron. My ribs, engorged with grief. My belly a safe house.

I shocked the clocks into obedience. In time, I will rise and

rise again,

come to rest in this spawning ground.

--Kristen McHenry