Lisa Hiton
Vigil
Sweetly, tell it sweetly. When the inner tides stir me,
I spend the first minutes memorizing the lover,
her chest in waves, her cheeks, edgeless. The precipice
of the balcony from which my feet hang over
the clematis vines, these nocturnal devotions.
Coming toward me, a prologue, a flying orchestra
of spring birds gathering on the banks of the creek.
To what are they praying? To what do they give such praise?
The landscape will change soon, filled with gold
light. When the inner tides stir me, the first minutes
are turmoil, memorizing the lover, being inarched
to night. What the birds tell me, they tell sweetly:
I am the hull of a boat, washed up to an island shore,
looking sideways at what is vertical in the landscape:
the dawn breaking in the space between trees.
Lisa Hiton holds an MFA in poetry from Boston University and an MEd in Arts in Education from Harvard University. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Literary Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Linebreak, and The Cortland Review among others. She has received the Esther B. Kahn Scholarship from 24Pearl Street at the Fine Arts Work Center and a nomination for the Pushcart Prize.
Return to November 2014 Edition
Sweetly, tell it sweetly. When the inner tides stir me,
I spend the first minutes memorizing the lover,
her chest in waves, her cheeks, edgeless. The precipice
of the balcony from which my feet hang over
the clematis vines, these nocturnal devotions.
Coming toward me, a prologue, a flying orchestra
of spring birds gathering on the banks of the creek.
To what are they praying? To what do they give such praise?
The landscape will change soon, filled with gold
light. When the inner tides stir me, the first minutes
are turmoil, memorizing the lover, being inarched
to night. What the birds tell me, they tell sweetly:
I am the hull of a boat, washed up to an island shore,
looking sideways at what is vertical in the landscape:
the dawn breaking in the space between trees.
Lisa Hiton holds an MFA in poetry from Boston University and an MEd in Arts in Education from Harvard University. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Literary Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Linebreak, and The Cortland Review among others. She has received the Esther B. Kahn Scholarship from 24Pearl Street at the Fine Arts Work Center and a nomination for the Pushcart Prize.
Return to November 2014 Edition