A word calls my name
others answer in rhyme from the canopy
where greenery is fluent and lemurs
with cursive tails leap
zigzagging in chatter
across shadowed valleys
of linguistic tributaries
from this babble
vowels fall and almost drown
mouth deep
I backtrack the primates
upstream follow
the verses they left
in whorls in the water
created out of
held breath
and wooden paddles
with temporary fingers
I scoop one up
it keeps its bowl form
and whirling movement
in my cupped hands
a blur of turning water
slowing,
letters precipitate
with sediment from a dreamt
existence
peripheral
to this vessel
8
Michele Worthington lives in Tucson, AZ where the Sonoran Desert, urban sprawl and our unacknowledged apocalypse inspires her writing. She has had poems published in Sandscript, Sandcutter, and Sabino Poets; an online chapbook at unlostJournal.com; and photography and poetry in Harpy Hybrid Review. She was a Tucson Haiku Hike and Arizona Matsuri contest winner, and a finalist for the 2023 Tucson Festival of Books literary awards.
