The 2River View 22.4 (Summer 2018)
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Laine Elizabeth Kuehn

 
Twilight

The hawk comes for the jay, sweeping in
from the southeast white pine.
Her shadow travels briefly over snow
before it is swallowed by darkness
made bluer by dusk.
 
The man at the window,
one hand hidden in a dishcloth,
does not see what happens—only the shadow moving,
the precise descent.
 
An imperfect, golden tapestry
spills from the kitchen window into the dimness,
where it seems as though nothing is moving
but branches.

It is quiet for a time
both inside and outside the house.
 

Without Keening

Like silk
being drawn over a body
in the dark, the grief comes.

Not even the veery’s call
with its hundred fragile fingers
can pull it aside. The sound fills the trees,
rolls along them like two white marbles
down a glass funnel.

The silk smells slightly sweet:
cardamom and honey.
It is feather-light.
It is so long
it could wrap around a thousand bodies
and still trail into the sea.
 

Laine Elizabeth Kuehn, a graduate of Denver School of the Arts and the University of Maine—Farmington, is a steering committee member of the Belfast Poetry Festival and co-creator and co-editor of The Lark, an online literature and arts magazine.

 
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