Poetry by Leah Baker
Ashes
Kneeling on the cement, I consider where to scatter the ashes of past love, that charcoaled rosette of paper, love and its holy partner, grief listen under the black of new moon, there, the wanderer rustling in the trash pile of the back alley, glass bottles, thornbush, mattress It is not the same as a deceased body put to rest, burned and released with a flourish of trumpeted honor and choking grief into sea, forest, stone. It is dampening the living, darkening a live entity: a perceived absolute made obsolete, the making of breath into a ghost and hope a myth, the silvering of severed fingers turned gray. |
Howl Her, Seek Her
You mouth your way around love for the first time, mild, courtly polished poem I writhing fullness I the ragged, I the knowing, Me with blisters, sweating beads that sing of mermaid depth, disentangled, broken baby, longing body Coyote! bring her, howler, seeker. |
Leah Baker teaches writing at a public high school, and has had her pieces featured in such publications as Mixtape Memoirs and The Mystic Blue Review. She enjoys traveling, yoga, and gardening. Leah resides in Portland, Oregon, and wants to pet your cat.