Eileen Pettycrew

Give me darkness. I know that sky. The brother I followed
to reservoir’s cattails, the zing of blue dragonflies, a dead carp—
its bloated body summoning the brother.
He poked it with a stick,
smudged the sky with a monster we couldn’t outrun.
I am the girl who followed the brother,
breathing the sky he breathed, calling his name.
Now the brother is here but not here;
I call his name but my words go unanswered.
Sometimes loss stabs me like a stick.
Is it true the brother is lost to me, far from the sky
I swallowed, the darkness he let escape?

I swallowed the darkness he let escape,
is it true? The brother is lost to me, far from the sky.
Sometimes loss stabs me like a stick:
I call his name but my words go unanswered.
Now the brother is here but not. Here,
breathing the sky he breathed, calling his name,
I am the girl who followed. The brother
smudged the sky with a monster we couldn’t outrun;
he poked it with a stick—
its bloated body summoning the brother
to reservoir’s cattails, the zing of blue dragonflies, a dead carp:
Give me darkness I know. That sky. The brother I followed.

 

*Inspired by Judith Barrington

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Eileen Pettycrew’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Calyx, Watershed Review, The Scream Online Dreams Poetry Anthology, Hubbub, VoiceCatcher, and others. She lives and writes in Portland, Oregon.