It is a tree
A bird
The sea
My breast
Their bodies
Small perfect shells
Sorrow entered
Our bed
Body
Baby
Slanted Breath
Some day
Will you ache
Like I ache
Burl in the base
Of this tree
Rounded darkness
Right for
The only doing
There can be
My shell
That of an insect
A scarab
An etched womb
New shells
Drawn from
Memory
A scar
The dried
Place
Of it
Pulled out
With the forest tide
Patsy Creedy lives in San Francisco, California. She has published poetry and creative nonfiction in several publications including Transfer Magazine, Dragon’s Leap, Inlandia, RCVRY Quarterly and Your Golden Sun Still Shines, an anthology of San Francisco stories. She has a memoir coming out in early 2021, ‘Without Her, Memoir of a Family,’ by Atmosphere Press. She was a resident at Dairy Hollow in the fall of 2019.
