craobhan measan
1.
We speak of
river, the birth of
silt, a small
gentled
wanting / grief is
water memory / it whistles
across the hinterland
& marries
the human cheek
2.
I like to imagine
that we are
fruit trees / barked beings
swapping
palms, an archive of
flesh, animal
language / the earth is
feeding us / whittling suns
into our
fingerlines / & then
a child
appears: great swathes of
skin / warmth
pocketed under
curls, smiles / joy
like an
apricot
3.
Let me begin
with a simple
truth: the hurt sat
in her hands / mountained
across a human
chest / hills of
hip, womb
sand, more petal than
promise / body
like a
prayer,
singing / & is she not supposed
to see river
here: / limbed
wildlife, herds of
anchorage, deer
choosing the wind to
mother / their whiskers folded
towards each
other / rhyme people
with place, earth says,
chest with
heart, & we will
arrive at
You —
Eartha (@eartha_davis_) wishes to live gently, kindly, & most certainly by a river. She placed second in the 2022 Global Woorilla Poetry Prize Youth Section & has been nominated for Best of the Net, with work published or forthcoming in Wildness, Frozen Sea, Minarets, South Florida Poetry Journal, JMWW, Arboreal Magazine, ELJ Editions, the Stirling Review, Sour Cherry Magazine, Revolute, & Eunoia Review, among others. She is a poetry editor at three journals & dreams of birds.