Kathleen Brewin Lewis
Two Poems
Good Friday, Tybee Island
The sun throbs, bleeds down sky,
soaks into the Back River and its marsh.
It halves, slivers, then it is finished,
leaving the air softer,
sadder than before.
Silhouettes cross roseate sky,
brown pelicans come to catch their dinner.
They plunge, one by one, for a fish–
tiny, vacillating, silver–spied from on high
in the gloaming.
Can you see me,
standing on this pier as darkness swells?
Do you hunger for me, as I for you?
Do you mean, at the end of the day,
to fish me out of deep water, to take me,
take me as I am?
And so, September
arrives to straddle the seasons—
parching heat, then spattering rain,
too late to save the corn but in time
to sprout the pumpkin. There will be
plenty of down-to-earth suns to sell
at fall farmers markets, hickory nuts
and collards, cured hams and radishes,
amber jars of honey. Dahlias wrapped
in dampened newsprint; cinnamon-laced pies.
The solstice has been recalled, the equinox
advances. Soon—a heady whiff
of wood smoke. Yellow leaves stunning
the black pond.
Kathleen Brewin Lewis is a Georgia writer and author of two chapbooks, Fluent in Rivers (FutureCycle Press, 2014) and July’s Thick Kingdom (FutureCycle Press, 2015). She has an MA in Professional Writing from Kennesaw State University and is senior editor of Flycatcher. Recent work has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Cider Press Review, The Tishman Review, and Menacing Hedge. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee.
“Good Friday, Tybee Island” appeared in The Penwood Review. “And so, September” appeared in Still: The Journal.