Zoë Ryder White
Via Post: Saint’s Fingertips
In a church in France in the last century I saw where they kept the old saint’s fingertips wrapped in
lace. Her hair, such as it was hair, lit like a tungsten wick as the sun struck it just so, going down.
They kept her clippings. Her bones cleaned and boxed. To look upon them while holding your
intentions to the light would unlock the level where she might tell you what to do next. Because I
did not know my intentions, I did not know what to ask. I saw a northern flicker crushed on the
road yesterday. The spotted breast, the yellow under-feather. The blaze of red at the crown. I
thought, if I take that yellow feather I can hold my intentions up to it and wish for clarity, in the
comfort of my home. But it held firm to the wing, and the wing held firm to the street, and I left it
there.
Zoë Ryder White’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Salamander, Thrush, Hobart, Sixth Finch, Threepenny Review, Crab Creek Review, and Subtropics, among others. Her chapbook, HYPERSPACE, was the editors’ choice pick for the Verse Tomaž Šalamun Prize and is now available from Factory Hollow Press. She co-authored a chapbook, A Study in Spring, with Nicole Callihan. Elsewhere, their most recent collaboration, won the Sixth Finch chapbook competition in 2019. A former elementary school teacher, she edits books for educators about the craft of teaching.
Return to September 2021 Edition
In a church in France in the last century I saw where they kept the old saint’s fingertips wrapped in
lace. Her hair, such as it was hair, lit like a tungsten wick as the sun struck it just so, going down.
They kept her clippings. Her bones cleaned and boxed. To look upon them while holding your
intentions to the light would unlock the level where she might tell you what to do next. Because I
did not know my intentions, I did not know what to ask. I saw a northern flicker crushed on the
road yesterday. The spotted breast, the yellow under-feather. The blaze of red at the crown. I
thought, if I take that yellow feather I can hold my intentions up to it and wish for clarity, in the
comfort of my home. But it held firm to the wing, and the wing held firm to the street, and I left it
there.
Zoë Ryder White’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Salamander, Thrush, Hobart, Sixth Finch, Threepenny Review, Crab Creek Review, and Subtropics, among others. Her chapbook, HYPERSPACE, was the editors’ choice pick for the Verse Tomaž Šalamun Prize and is now available from Factory Hollow Press. She co-authored a chapbook, A Study in Spring, with Nicole Callihan. Elsewhere, their most recent collaboration, won the Sixth Finch chapbook competition in 2019. A former elementary school teacher, she edits books for educators about the craft of teaching.
Return to September 2021 Edition