The geese are turning their backs on us 

By Olivia Gwyn

Leaving for a land more kind than home 

and I would send you with them

if I knew which way was south

But winter bleeds through the trees 

and I curse the cold and the leaving 

and the wings of the birds that carry them away 

Curse the knowledge that there is a place

that stays warm and waits for them

and that I do not know the way 

It’s you, isn’t it?

 

It’s you, isn’t it? 

By Olivia Gwyn

I would bring her to him

I would lower her down hand over rope-burned hand 

if I knew the building he was in 

I keep asking, asking 

I start to believe he isn’t really there,

but it’s you I’m talking to, isn’t it? 

I carry her on my back going in circles 

telling the air I can’t find you, 

but it’s you listening, isn’t it? 

You are the air and I am breathing you 

ragged through my lungs

pleading for you to help her, help me

You are not mean

you are not angry

you are just quiet when I want you to be loud 

Drown out the sound of all my insufficiencies, fears 

and give me one breath of fresh air to scream

something to hope in

Instead, you are just here 

and I don’t know what to do 

with you in my veins and lungs 

Beside me 

not leaving 

or saying a word

Like the wind

or maybe

a friend

I’ve stopped trying to write what I don’t know

I’ve stopped trying to write what I don’t know 

By Olivia Gwyn

Instead—

the scattering of the leaves, the underside of the branches, the soft mud underfoot and the gentle unforeseen passing of days 

The weeping of the willows in my best friend’s backyard in June, her parents insisting we wear helmets, me, proud and foolish, determined to ride with

The wind in my hair, the world flying by my eyes, my heart too slow, too young to imagine what they feared, what they knew

How much there still was to lose

and how full my hands are,

how easily something could fall