appealing

The Maynard
Spring 2015

Carolyn Supinka
0:00
 
 

Girl II

She is that drink I stir. That field we pass
on the way home every night. It is a clearing
rimmed with white birches, stark lines of tree bodies
like steam escaping from cracks in the soft earth.

She once said she saw a phoenix rise from that clearing,
and even though she was making it up we could see it too.
Think of little girls picturing a phoenix.
Who told us about these birds on fire?
I didn’t picture it on fire, but glad.
Whoever gets to burn like that must be glad,
rising like clockwork. That field.

I think it would be cool. I think it would be soft as blue velvet,
impervious to wrinkles and time.
The fabric of that field stretches in my mind,
offers its body as a blanket for me to press my cheek to.
It’s a place I’ve never been, but I want to return to, again and again,
until I have a reason to stop, and let myself in.