Before the Time of Distance
when I didn’t hunger to hear the small talk of strangers
words handed off like buckets in a fire line
serious thoughts confided to an infant
a hundred rains across the surface of the sea
my mother’s silhouette against my night window
a dream of a white field
the season moves toward us like a lid about to close
moments before snow
build up within us like a sob
words handed off like buckets in a fire line
serious thoughts confided to an infant
a hundred rains across the surface of the sea
my mother’s silhouette against my night window
a dream of a white field
the season moves toward us like a lid about to close
moments before snow
build up within us like a sob
September / October, 2022
Alison Prine’s debut collection of poems, Steel (Cider Press Review, 2016) was named a finalist for the 2017 Vermont Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Five Points, Harvard Review and Prairie Schooner among others. She lives and works in Burlington, Vermont. Visit her at alisonprine.com.
Art: Madge Evers. Bluets in June. Mushroom spores on paper.