by Sharon Tracey

—Topanga: where the mountain meets the sea
The Tongva


Coyote’s call cuts the wind
and wakes me, the summer moon full,
the canyon rimmed midnight blue
as if all water and light,
my dream following the path
of the day’s news—
the thin white
beluga whale
who swam a southern path
from arctic waters
and found himself in France
along the Seine.
They tried to feed him dead
herring and live trout.
They hoped to save him
as they hoisted high
with heavy nets his body,
more sardine-like than cetacean,
so emaciated. There then
was a shape-shifting
above my bed—
a whale’s glow in the echo
of coyote. The beluga’s
final thoughts unknown,
as he was spooned
from the silver river—
too fresh, too warm.

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Sharon Tracey is the author of three poetry collections: Land Marks (forthcoming, Shanti Arts 2022), Chroma: Five Centuries of Women Artists (Shanti Arts) and What I Remember Most is Everything (All Caps Publishing). Her poems have appeared in Radar Poetry, Lily Poetry Review, Terrain.org, The Banyan Review, SWWIM Every Day, and elsewhere. She lives and writes in western Massachusetts. See sharontracey.com.

by Sharon Tracey

there is a place remote and islanded, and given
to endless regret or secret happiness
—Sarah Orne Jewett


We hiked the island, shaped like a maple
seed and brushed with wild blueberry,

crunched stones along the carriage paths
then climbed the crest of Cadillac Mountain.

A raft of clouds sailed by. A crew of hawks.
Blue pierced the day with its harpoon, I swear

I saw a breaching whale. You could see the land
bridge far below, the narrows sharp and cold,

and everywhere you turned, the pointed firs.
No tree is a country. No woman an island.

You hit the road, and yet, things follow you.
We stay until the world turns darker blue.

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Sharon Tracey is a poet and editor, and author of two full-length poetry collections: Chroma: Five Centuries of Women Artists (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2020) and What I Remember Most Is Everything (All Caps Publishing, 2017). Her poems have appeared in Terrain.org, The Worcester Review, Mom Egg Review, SWWIM Every Day, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere. See sharontracey.com.

by Sharon Tracey

hard bits and soft pieces,
bitter, sour, and sweet
places that have talked back
to me,
made me who I am,
made me ache from too much—
whittled me.

What we love, we love.

I have sipped from a cenote,
bitten a spur, savored fine strata
near the mouth of a river.
Swallowed decades of dust,
mere motes
in the soul of an eon.

I have settled in a valley
between green hills. Given birth
to a daughter in a world of a billion
daughters. Given birth to two sons
in a world of a billion sons.
I have sun-dried my hands.

Rumi said there are a thousand ways
to kneel
and kiss the ground.

I have lost count. I am counting.

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Sharon Tracey's poems have appeared in The Worcester Review, Mom Egg Review, Tule Review, Common Ground Review, and elsewhere. Her full-length poetry collections include What I Remember Most Is Everything (All Caps Publishing, 2017) and Chroma, forthcoming from Shanti Arts. See more at www.sharontracey.com.

by Sharon Tracey

            —Jennifer Bartlett (1991-92); oil on canvas


How do you build a painting with only
sixty minutes to live
between five and six in the evening
on a seven square-foot grid—

she’s dug a fishpond in a courtyard
fissured it in time
stocked it with cold-blooded koi
dressed in calico and banana yellow

some seem dredged in flour as if
they might be battered. They dart
and swim among the water lilies
then tip their scales and slip

under as if cold war spies.
Leaves past their prime have fallen
and float upon the placid surface
like Matisse cutouts that have died.

So much happens in a single hour
and so little—you stare
at the appearance of depth
and think of the fish, the ticking clock,
where the weeping light goes

and realize that you could just walk away
just take something and walk—

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Sharon Tracey is a poet, editor, and author of the poetry collection, What I Remember Most Is Everything (ALL CAPS PUBLISHING, 2017). Her poems have appeared in Mom Egg Review, Tule Review, Common Ground Review, Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry, Forth, Canary, Naugatuck River Review, Ekphrasis, and elsewhere. She lives in western Massachusetts. For more, please see www.sharontracey.com.