by Mary Morris

But I keep tripping on steps in the earth, get lost in my mother’s skirts, and then it approaches, without hatred and cares, with grace, ice in the mouth, pleasure of green. It digs its way deep, akin to a man burying his best friend, the yellow finches working their way into the canals of my ears, where they enter the heart, nest in the solar plexus, and I am born once again.

Mary Morris is the author of a recent book of poems: Enter Water, Swimmer, published by Texas Review Press through Texas A&M University Consortium. Her poems are widely published, appearing in Poetry, Poetry Daily, Boulevard, Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, The Massachusetts Review, Rattle, and elsewhere. She received the Rita Dove Award and was invited to read at the Library of Congress, recorded, and aired on NPR. Additionally, Morris received the New Mexico Discovery Award and recently won the 2019 Mountain West Poets Prize from Western Humanities Review. She has taught poetry in the schools and at Salem College. For further information, visit: http://www.water400.org