by Alexandra Crivici-Kramer

I remember when I learned my body
is a river. In some places a whisper,

& in others louder than the groans
of a cut tree.

Clear, roiled, demure, expansive.

Fed by rain, adored by roots
of ferns. In late summer

wildflowers bloom along
my edges, & in winter I learn to

live beneath
the superficial.

I can hold a landscape
on my hip, a valley

in the crook of my arm—
safe, swaddled, and warm.

Oh how free I felt,

when I welcomed
impermanence

and gave this body
the grace to transform.

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Alexandra Crivici-Kramer earned her MA from The Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College and has been a member of the Poetry Society of Vermont since 2017. Her poetry can be found in The Mountain Troubadour, The Bread Loaf Journal, The Inflectionist Review, The Button-Eye Review, and The Middlebury Centennial Journal. She is a teacher of English and Humanities, a certified yoga and ski instructor, and lives in Vermont with her husband, dog, and son born last spring.