What Rough Beast | Poem for August 2, 2019

Judith Skillman
A Daughter Returns

Brown nose in the blackberry flowers of June
muscled flanks
lifted forefoot curves the ribs move beneath fur

Trees in green wedding gowns hide her angry father,
birds dirge their only trill
over and again in the age of guns and mass shootings

In the short time I watch she’s worked her way
half across the yard driven by hunger, lifting each weed
like a cross toward the white sky

that may symbolize purity.
I see the grave, the abscess, the sinkhole
where she fell after the change.

Scree eases its stones across the rocky lip that hides Snow Lake
where swans of frost glide Berlin rivers
and skaters wearing yarn coats clasp hands in pas de deux.

The girl-woman breaks away,
twirls the second smallest matryoshka from its wood.
Before she disappears it is essential

to capture the ritual of grooming
the way our brown eyes met across a distance of old glass
forged from Santorini sand

and our mutual awareness of predation by men

Judith Skillman is the author of Came Home to Winter (Deerbrook Editions, 2019) and 15 other poetry collections. She has received grants from Artist Trust & Academy of American Poets. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Cimarron Review, Zyzzyva, We Refugees, and elsewhere. Visit judithskillman.com.

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