NEW! Poem by Natalie Lyalin

Natalie Lyalin

SO WHAT, THE CLOUDS

So what, the clouds

with a piercing gold haze

so a red feather stuck to my foot

The gull’s squawk, so what

Mother, father, horseshoe crab

I thought I spotted them all in

the glare of sunset

So what, the smudge of life

sooting bleached branches,

disinfecting the parts that need it

So what, until we say goodbye

we had a weekend together

and I helped pick out your dress

What does it matter

The tin chandelier pocked with holes

So what the rain

I never visited or cared too much

The bottles and woven baskets full of sea glass

Hair grit, white towel snapping in the wind

Birds circling their condos

An abundance of banana bread

Celebrating America not on the fourth of July

but on the 16th, when nothing is happening

Surprisingly I am somebody’s mother

I have no council

I turn on the lights

The sun crests the bank of pines pushing on the dusk

While overhead a group of rockets take off from Cape Canaveral

making an arc toward heaven