poem
Updated: 4 days ago
by Tovah Strong
Bound
childhood whispering in a bright cave.
the sandstone melt beneath
fingertips; soft yellow blanket.
we could burrow. the leaning,
close. in the cave where we were
scratching our names to a bouldertable
wide as two children’s heads, bent. us
scratching deep, deeper. so we wouldn’t
wash away. the seeming of no wrong
to make ourselves constant. glimmercoated.
the fastening of the whole to a part. an obligation
of tendons. the building
of our hands from sand.
the catch: a rock knocked
by a careless foot. cairn it, careful.
sunraw, we leap from outcrop to outcrop
like the goats we imagine could
climb any rocky face; ourselves caught
on split hooves wedged where there
appears nothing. an empty palm
where a palm used to be. if nothing lies
inside the space a person inhabited—
the sand of us, unraveling
through hands. the sand in a hand
sloughing skin as it slips past joints.
Tovah Strong grew up in New Mexico. She holds an MFA from Randolph College and a BFA in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. A recipient of the Glascock Poetry Prize, their work is forthcoming in Rocky Mountains Literary Field Guide and has previously appeared in Poetry Midwest, Terrain.org, and elsewhere.