appealing

The Maynard
Fall 2020

Iris Jamahl Dunkle

When We Wake Together in a Lost City

House erected on hammock land:      sight it
between water’s sink and swell.           What’s wild

islanded, twitching its fly-infested
flanks.                          History provides:  handwritten maps

blue throated ghosts whose unearthed bodies
under deck’s teeth       speak in low fog and wind.

Can’t know which way to paddle in a small
stuttering boat.              But islands, sand barges

arrive. Rise. Disappear.                     With fickle tide—
shipwrecks undersurface.

The wild chestnut horses bend to muzzle
and feed on what the sea has left them: knots

we can never untie.                       An obstinate
distance                           we learn to map inside ourselves.