Poetry

Fall 2007

Helen Ivory

Because the Earth Is Flat

Because the earth is flat and the horizon is so far away
she believes the dark birds that swoop overhead
are nothing more than speech marks in the speckled sky.

Because she wears heavy boots, and the earth is mostly clay
she thinks that she is grounded here; that nothing
could arrest her balance, unpick her from the soil.

The river chatters in her ear sometimes. Sometimes
it is invisible; below her, carving up land.
Sometimes it stutters into silence.

But her body feels the pull of water,
while only her skin feels the movement of air.
All the time the river talks, the river talks.

And the sky reveals its complicated corners.
And crows trace the winding snake of river.