This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from Incidental Pollen by Ellen Austin-Li (Madville Publishing 2025).
Delphi Falls
The distant drumming of water
grew to pounding thunder
as we drew closer to the falls.
We edged nearer on the scrabble path,
plunged into refrigerated shade
under the tuck of the cliff. My sister and I
leaned in to hear our mother’s stories, our voices
raised above the din of the oracle’s timpani,
her white hair misted dark
as she recalled her younger day, dancing
square and round there, in the nutbrown
pavilion overlooking the gorge.
We three turned silent
as we watched the bridal veil
fan across the granite.
Ellen Austin-Li‘s debut collection, Incidental Pollen—a 2023 Trio Award finalist, 2024 Wisconsin Poetry Series semi-finalist, and runner-up to the 2023 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize—is forthcoming (May 2025) from Madville Publishing. Finishing Line Press published her chapbooks Firefly and Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic. Ellen is a Pushcart Prize & Best of the Net nominated poet whose work appears in many journals and anthologies, such as Salamander, One Art, The Maine Review, Lily Poetry Review, and Rust & Moth. SAFTA has supported her work. Ellen curates the monthly reading series Poetry Night at Sitwell’s in Cincinnati, where she shares an empty nest with her husband.
Layla Lenhardt is the author of the full-length poetry collection Mother Tongue (Main Street Rag 2023). She is an alumna of the Firefly Farms Residency and a member of the Sundress Reader Board. She is currently working on her second full length poetry collection Little Spoon, and she is an MFA candidate at IU.
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