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.

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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.