This selection, chosen by Managing Editor Krista Cox, is from How Blood Works by Ellene Glenn Moore, released by Kent State University Press in 2021.
Seven Ghosts
Siasconset, Massachusetts
I.
From the roof we watch for nothing in particular—waves, perhaps, or bees looming from one collection of blooms to another. The wind shudders the grey shingles until all we can hear is the sky straining to make an impression on us. And then what happens—or, rather—how is it we came to this.
II.
Rotary: recursion, the dry pump, cobblestones. Over and over I let go of the handlebars, willing myself in circles.
III.
A streak of grass and bramble finds its way behind cottages on the lee side of the bluff. A potato moth beats windward. A weathervane contends no and no and no.
IV.
The cranberry bogs on the island’s interior—moors thick with scrub pine, sand paths—almost vibrate in the evening light. This is exactly the vivid dusk I imagined, the vermillion promise that I would keep if I could only / just / remember. It is a blood offering. Sickle-feathered swallows make a great godseye above the standing water, weaving together and apart in their quest for satiety.
V.
Loom: crave, warp, that which is thrown away. Next to the bus stop, a wrought iron compass rose reaches out in a dozen directions, knitting together worlds that seem determined to drift.
VI.
In the yard, a young maple tree is just what you say. Root ball easing open, leaves pocked, new growth holding me out to the ocean. I am terrified of all this unfolding.
VII.
Leeward: point of reference, rosehips and pine, protection. Once I let a kite strip itself out of my hands and watched it grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared inside of me.
Ellene Glenn Moore is an American writer living in Zürich. She is the author of How Blood Works (Kent State University Press, 2021), winner of the 2020 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize. Ellene’s poetry, lyric non-fiction, and critical work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Best New Poets, Poetry Northwest, Brevity, West Branch, and elsewhere. Find her at elleneglennmoore.com.
