SUBSEQUENTLY by Chella Courington

You gave me a cactus pear
after our daughter
tumbled
off the boat and you
swam
under spiral blades
to raise her
from the bloody floor
a rose anemone
waiting
for spring
not for you.

Did you jump
for her
or did the white lady
with silver hair
like the moon
reach up
and pull you
overboard
into an ocean
not salty
enough
to bear your gamy
carcass
spitting it back to me
night
after night?

In darkness
I dive
past star feathers
and sea pansies
searching for my child
not for you
until I find her
asleep
in a conch shell
skin
luminously pink
unsuited
for sun.


This poem appears in the recent issue of Karamu, edited by Olga Abella and published by Eastern Illinois University.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins

As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.


from poetryfoundation.org