She swallows a pearl uncultured it is
so is she inside the pearl
sleeps mustard seed or
a babe’s clipped nail or
a kitten’s eyelash or
something else alive and
spinning warm.
She walks toward
the far middle distance
with a pebble in
her shoe she put it there
to remember always
that she’s of this earth
not of the air
she cannot fly doesn’t want
to fly all that air swishing
as she swings ever higher
toward the moon
tonight barely one night
past full
she swallows the moon
nor of the water
she cannot swim such effort
to stay afloat part of her wanting
to be vertical
in
water
she walks on
thinking she must be glowing
willing the pearl
the pebble
the spinning night
to save her.

(Unsplash)
Published in the December 2020 issue:
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Judy Brackett lives in the California foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada. Her poems have appeared in Fish Anthology 2022, California Fire & Water, Epoch, the Maine Review, Commonweal, Midwest Review, Cloudbank, Subtropics, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. Her poetry chapbook, Flat Water: Nebraska Poems was published by Finishing Line Press.
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