Thursday, December 6, 2007

Journeys

//journeys

"Journeys"
by Elizabeth Southwood

She looks again at her watch
as she sits in semi-lotus
on municipally tended grass,
in the shade of a rustling tree,
undistracted by occasional spray
from the nearby, choppy, grout-gray water.
Sailors race in a bevy of boats,
white isosceles jibs puffing out,
half waiting for the rocket launch.

Her mahogany hair
ripples over her shoulder blades
like a luffing sail.
Her hands rest on her stomach.
She stares at the china-white rocket
as it rises on a column of flame
with the roar of a thousand thunder claps.
Her stomach flops.
The rocket slants away into the blue,
a triangulating
white tail trailing behind it,
the father
of her baby in it.

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