Our plans hatched like insects—
clustered rooms, constellations
of timber and nail. Our plans
blue as a drowned girl, blue
as bones in the fox’s den, peacock
feathers leaving trails in the dust.
Blue as midnight, blue as bruise,
our fathers unrolled them like old maps
of the sea —someday a widow’s walk
someday a staircase— old maps of the sea
stiff with monsters, ice fields, broken
ribs of ships, the jewels they held.
Thanks to The Cincinnati Review, where this poem first appeared.
Sarah Burke 