Zoë Ryder White
Some of this I dreamed:
It was night. I sailed
when there was water; waved
to the shore people.
Mostly, I was the shore people,
or I was among the shore-dwelling
beasts. I cracked open a beer.
I was beastly, my mouth
in the river to drink that, too.
There was always enough river;
it never ran out. Green-snarled.
I watched my little boat
go by me. From the boat,
I saw me leaning on my forearms
to get my mouth another drink.
Whose body was that,
swallowing? Whose quiet
tongue. The stars’ acute light
made me more visible to myself
than was comfortable.
Down the road,
someone shot cans
off a fence in the dark.
There’s a place in this map
where I let grass grow
right through my skin.
Zoë Ryder White’s poems have appeared in Sixth Finch, Threepenny Review, The Crab Creek Review, Forklift Ohio, and Subtropics, among others. She coauthored a chapbook, A Study in Spring, with Nicole Callihan. She is the author of a book for teachers about using poetry to teach reading, Playing with Poems: Word Study Lessons for Shared Reading, and she is a co-author of One to One:The Art of Conferring with Young Writers. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.
Return to July 2019 Edition
It was night. I sailed
when there was water; waved
to the shore people.
Mostly, I was the shore people,
or I was among the shore-dwelling
beasts. I cracked open a beer.
I was beastly, my mouth
in the river to drink that, too.
There was always enough river;
it never ran out. Green-snarled.
I watched my little boat
go by me. From the boat,
I saw me leaning on my forearms
to get my mouth another drink.
Whose body was that,
swallowing? Whose quiet
tongue. The stars’ acute light
made me more visible to myself
than was comfortable.
Down the road,
someone shot cans
off a fence in the dark.
There’s a place in this map
where I let grass grow
right through my skin.
Zoë Ryder White’s poems have appeared in Sixth Finch, Threepenny Review, The Crab Creek Review, Forklift Ohio, and Subtropics, among others. She coauthored a chapbook, A Study in Spring, with Nicole Callihan. She is the author of a book for teachers about using poetry to teach reading, Playing with Poems: Word Study Lessons for Shared Reading, and she is a co-author of One to One:The Art of Conferring with Young Writers. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.
Return to July 2019 Edition