ALHAMBRA 2011 POETRY CALENDAR IS HERE!

THE 2011 ALHAMBRA POET CALENDAR IS HERE! BOTH DAILY CALENDAR AND POETRY ANTHOLOGY, IT SITS ATOP DESK, KITCHEN COUNTER, MICROWAVE, BEDSIDE TABLE, OR ANY FLAT SURFACE, WAITING TO BE READ. ORDER NOW FROM http://www.alhambrapublishing.com/htm/EPC11.html. NORTH CAROLINA POETS INCLUDE ISABEL ZUBER, JOHN HOPPENTHALER, SARAH LINDSAY, CATHERINE CARTER, RHETT ISEMAN TRULL, among others.

The is the poem of mine included in the calendar. It first appeared in CLOTHESLINES, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham.

Rivershawl

She’d dribble the fringe of her shawl

in the river. The quick current rippled the black threads.

They floated as she wished she could.

They wanted to be swept away but she held fast

to what had been woven. Her mother’s shawl.

Now her own. How much longer

to be handed down, this black keepsake?

She d lift out the fringe,

rub it over her face, feel the cold

water run down her cheeks,

down her neck,

into white folds of flesh underneath the dress

worn before her by her kinswomen.

What might she catch in this web

if she let it drift far enough

out of the shallows,

into the dark center

where she could not see the bottom?

How far would she have to wade

until she stepped into

some other world, under the sun-dappled

surface? The river itself was a shawl,

always wrapping itself round the hills,

threaded with golden light,

trailing its castaway leaves.

It could weave her into its weft,

carry her farther than she could imagine--

the sea she could feel surging

inside when she let herself

want what she knew she could not

have, a life she could open

as wide as a closet door onto

garments no woman had worn

before her. Nobody’s life but her own.