Riverbed

I stand between the brow 

of two cliff faces — 

The cold breath of time curving me 

into a bereavement — 

one step out and onto the oak panels 

of the past. Childhood is a thin ship. 

I sail along the fossilized riverbed 

beneath me. 

Memory’s grassy plots have For Sale signs 

glued to their mailboxes. 

In the first, the one that is not 

a stopping place, 

The great blue spruce 

carves a hole into the earth — 

A rooted master of its tenants 

living in its gaze. 

My bedroom, my bedroom. 

I will not sleep inside it. 

I will not walk on all fours. 

Further and further, I press my pole 

into the water. 

Grass plots. Empty, and for sale, 

shape shift into crumpled paper. 

A child’s body. Hands groping for form. 

I have crossed the sea. 

I have known many hands. 

(searching and like yours) 

I have been a shore to myself, 

held the tide as a breath. 

A child’s body. 

Blue-bottled and beautiful. 

Sophia Fornwalt is a Kentuckian writer currently living and teaching in the United Kingdom. Her work explores the relationship between nature, memory, and survival. She has previously been published in ZENIADA Magazine and Persimmons Art & Literary Magazine. She is a graduate of Kenyon College and the University of Exeter.