by Julia Gibson
Pale-Fire Sky
Held up next to my ear, your breath soft and rolling,
like the lakeshore waves, like the breath like the waves,
like the breath, like the waves quiet magnificence like the breath,
quiet, like the waves that ease my body into rest sunlight and delicate sweat dripping
through my pores returns to the shore, O elemental union of water, fire,
breath and life. O god-rays and god-rains, dripping from the top of the tent,
guide me back to my native state
of completion despite a life that is never
in-and-of-itself complete Please forgive and understand
me for being weak for needing a day of rest
the surrender of a pale-fire
sky.
Julia Gibson is a multidisciplinary thinker, creator, and problem solver aspiring to contribute to a more understanding, compassionate, and functional world. After studies in violin performance at Manhattan School of Music, she completed a BA in Cognitive Science at Brown University and an MSc in mathematics at McMaster University. She now works as an aerospace engineer for Rocket Lab in Toronto, Canada. Blessed and cursed with poetic impulses from childhood, her first full-length collection of poetry, Two Doors, was published in 2019 by Clare Songbirds Publishing House. Other of her poems and book reviews have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Vallum, Prairie Fire, Brickyard by Brick Books, the League of Canadian Poets' daily e-series, High Shelf, and Wild Roof Journal. You can find her space on the web at julia-gibson.com.