Thursday, March 01, 2018

The Sunday Poet: Kathleen Hellen

Kathleen Hellen





Kathleen Hellen is the author of the collection Umberto’s Night, winner of the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize, and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra and Pentimento. Nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net, and featured on Poetry Daily, her poems are widely published and have been awarded the Thomas Merton poetry prize and prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review






BAYSIDE


Winter: tar the pound net. Fish with drift.
Words like relics.

I am renting summer with the alefish, hardhead
tourists rip-rapped to the tidal fringe, the pale
picture of a ship, listing toward
imagination. The lost art of hitch knots.

Empty rum and whiskey bottles stow in overhead.
Across the lawn,
party lights in red and white like Mardi Gras,
like Christmas lights in perpetuity. Suddenly

lightening tears a jagged seam in darkened mist.
A storm’s coming in. The chicks
under wing, vulnerable.

I sit with pen and paper, trying to decide the line
between the sky and sea. No skiffs as far as I can see.

Spring: plant the oysters.

No comments:

Post a Comment