Solstice Fog

Like stepping off a lip into the air—
snow and sky a ruptured sense of who

is where. All that white, even the barn
and house loosen like confusion into

the field. My father used to throw a ball
around with me as darkness fell. Hard to lose

the muscle-memory of catching and
letting go. I feel him settle in this ghosting

meadow like a print—a gap that sinks
when shadows drop into the snow.

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Jen Ryan Onken lives and teaches in southern Maine. Recent poems have appeared in Deep Water, Zocalo Public Square, The Night Heron Barks, and LEON Literary Review. Her chapbook, Medea at the Laundromat, was a 2020 finalist for the Larry Levis Post-Grad Prize at Warren Wilson's Program for Writers, where she recently completed her MFA. Jen was the Maine Poet's Society winner of their 2019 prize for previously unpublished poets.