Annette Sisson
Image by Yaroslav Shuraev
Annette Sisson’s poems are published in Valparaiso PR, Birmingham PR, Rust + Moth, Citron Review, Lascaux Review, Cider PR, Glassworks, Aeolian Harp Anthology (2023), and others. Her first book Small Fish in High Branches was published by Glass Lyre (5/22), and she is finishing her second, Winter Sharp with Apples. Her poems have placed in Frontier New Voices, The Fish Anthology, and others; several have been nominated for The Pushcart and Best of the Net.
Woodlanders
after Thomas Hardy
You graze the field of my skin,
your finger maps its ridges,
furrows, troughs. No boundary
curbs the longing that roots us
to the earth of one another.
In you I’ve found my Gabriel Oak
made of thicket and sunlight,
wheat sheaves, harvest,
moon-scythe. You measure the stars,
their cycles, coax spring
lambs, steward seeds,
shore up fences—hearken to
my call across the dusky acres.
Your collarbone cradles my cheek.
Elm twigs brush the windowpane.
Sovereign rivers, we rise,
converge in the woodland,
neither north nor south, shade
nor sunrise, cedar nor oak.
We find each other among trees—
leaf on leaf, skin on skin,
wave upon shoal.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
©2023 West Trade Review
Stay Connected to Our Literary Community. Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Listen to Poem:
