"Headwind" by Amber Flora Thomas

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend November 13, 2017   Headwind   Amber Flora Thomas

Weak motion of grasses and tern before the sea. Worry's school cresting here and everywhere as failings.   I pace the cliff path, my hands cupped above my eyes. The glare steals your progress, a kayak needling the wide open.   Love means you answer, this the child's rebuke. A pattern crosses the point, hemming the horizon: steamship.   I didn't know you were the green pitch unable to beat the storm to shore. You didn't know I was the lookout.   Get accustomed to the sad girl picking you out of the sea, the knot caught in her throat, and the unraveling of her speech: an endless rope thrown out of me.            Copyright © 2017 Amber Flora Thomas. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "I grew up walking the headlands in my hometown of Mendocino, California, so the precipice is a place I know well. Then there's my tendency toward worry, which I inherited from my mother and her mother, and so on. When I find myself in love, I inevitably end up crossing through this childish phase, when I worry my beloved will not return to me for any number of terrible reasons, chief among them that I am not lovable. And as a person who has lost friends and lovers over the years, I know that love reaches beyond the physical and is, in fact, endless. I guess I wanted to acknowledge that truth through this poem." —Amber Flora Thomas   Amber Flora Thomas's most recently published book is The Rabbits Could Sing (University of Alaska Press, 2012). Her new poetry collection, Red Channel in the Rupture, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2018. She lives in Washington, North Carolina. Poetry by Thomas   The Rabbits Could Sing (University of Alaska Press, 2012) from Oracles for Youth by Caroline Gillman "Circuitry" by Janine Joseph "The End of the Pier" by Nicole Callihan Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

From Our Sponsors