Homing

I would embrace you today but your body is haylage
low sugar meadow late cut from slow rolling hills
sweet grass shorn close every year down to clover
down to root into mineral-rich loam now your home
home also the centerpiece pond plated with silver
fish scales around whose radiance we hiked marveled
at the rising moon all those Aprils ago do you remember
I would embrace you today but your body is breath
hot in the nostrils of a sorrel mare fecund with foal
with ferment of alfalfa of bat guano frass of honeybees
my sister today I am alone and so tired of grief ache
instead to spread wide my wings take in the essence
of everything loud jazz notes of geese praise be to
the enigma of their homing which is all that departs
comes back just as sure as we will never be parted
for on this day I have braided you a nest marker
from the long reeds of my missing so that we may
embrace with my arms which are your arms my body
your easter as much a part of me now as the mineral
and mare’s breath the heartbeat in my neck all your
life left unlived oh sister beloved sister

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Michele Karas holds an MFA in creative writing from CUNY: The City College of New York. A Community of Writers poetry contributor, her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Tab Journal, Rogue Agent, Midwestern Review, Narrative, Thrush, and elsewhere. Originally from San Diego, Michele now makes her home in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley.