AND SO IT IS BECAUSE OF THE LICHEN
Gathering the facts like so many
bones. They make a good tool
for telling you I am in love. With
the flint, I tear one open, climb in,
and speak: hold me close like a crucifix
above the river. I cannot cross it the way
I would my heart. In certain chambers,
the water pooled and stood. Day by day,
you recount your disillusions. You drink
from one spring & then the next. I have
remarked in women a curious ability
to embroider the facts. To get at the truth
I have been compelled to treat them as
pathological. What are her threats
but testimonies of love? That sincerity
she strewed about her as seed is
strewn and up grew a trampled flower.
Gathering the facts like so many flowers,
I just don’t like the water in the air
anymore. Stay on the ground. Let
your feet touch the bottom of the
spring, gaze longingly. These are
your instructions. It’s all you have
to do. He will love you too. You
will have a home. But I am scared
to descend. What if I hate it there?
So many birds in the air, pictures
in the rocks. It is vertiginous. Why
do they make it here, rather than
there? Because of the lichen, it is
impossible to see the footprints of
a child with the natural eye. His
life can be impenetrable because
of the footprints of his children
beneath the lichen. The sun is out &
water falls upon my head. My heart
takes leaps because of the lichen.
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Stephanie Berger is the Executive Director of , co-founder of the, and Creator/Madame of . Stephanie’s poetry has appeared in Fence, Interim,, and , among other publications, and she published a chapbook,, on . Stephanie is also an editor forand sings in the all girl electrofolk band,
