Tricia Elliott

  Spring Tide   As their calls rippled past you wondered at how easily you breathed underwater   and drifted untroubled  within that widening so when  dreaming leaves   you at the shore of this valley  soaked in  not  whale…

  Incongruous   A fox trots in fine lines  through the pencil sketch forest   to pause at tree here, stump there, its movements precise   or holy   it marks the roots in an ochre light like a musky saint…

    Threshold For Margaret   When the sunrise spread blooms  across the snow  and painted the window in almost spring   you fingered the stories looped round your neck, strung up like  pearls or teeth, depending   each moment…

  Unapologetic   The porcupine swishsteps  across the road    to saunter with unexpected  grace    up the steep and snowy bank   leaving a trail like  a zipper   or a creek that’s left  its bed   eager to…

Disguise For a moment, the mountain flushed with color, even though it was winterand noon on a cloudless day as if perhaps it had tugged at the quilted sky with scree-sloped arms, pulling it upand over a rocky chin so…

  Unbridled   As the sky grows stars  over settling snow the forests move  in eyeshine and tail,  pressing padded feet beneath gazing owl and curtaining fade of coyote call claiming the meadow as lynx, four in all, lope and…

Cohesion The day we removed the cadaver’s heart, tugging it freefrom its taproot vessels and lung-lined bed, it filled both handswith an earthen weight: carnal, and still. My heart beat wildly, nearby, as I opened it,directed to trace the map…

  Spectral   All day the clouds crept about in watery clothes, draping the ridgelines in steam and  snow    coating each tree with their foggy weight leaving them ghosted,  unrecognizable,  stalled by a slow mist  between black and white.…

  For Mary Oliver   The alder twig skidded to a stop on a hoar frosted slope wearing winter bird cones —  ruffled, feather thick —   a delivery just as surprising  and indelible  as a sudden flash of wings…

  Arms   When you lift the young pup — blind, burrowing all belly — it settles like a child in the pool of your arms, stilling   oblivious to the humming rush  that races along your spine, a dusty…