Member Poem

Legend
 
 
A legend
at its inception
exists on no terms
except how its words
read the land.
 
A heron
stands stalk-still
by a pond’s edge,
where cat-sized snapping turtles
rear their ancient
periscope snouts
and wait.
 
At night,
in the spotlight
of a run-down casino,
gulls circle and dive
like moths around a candle,
like a universe reeling with stars.
 
A woman
with a willow staff
bounds across the peaks
of striated mountains,
cracked and bleeding,
as she outruns a giant.
 
She burrows
in the ground
to escape
severed limbs
scattered piecemeal
as pebbles.
 
She hides
under a basket
while her people
turn to corpses
from one flash
of demonic eyes.
 
She walks
behind her newest mate,
as he names
the desert animals,
the burrows and buttes.
 
Her task is vital.
She is the one
who senses danger.
It’s written in cracks
and chlorophyll
she reads with the soles
of her feet.

 First published in Helen: A Literary Magazine