Mollie O'Leary
Image by Gordan Millar
Landing in Tromsø
Behind its window of bent bones,
my heart shuts like the suitcase I lug
from country to country. I weave
through the knot of waiting
strangers, each airport gaze
searching for someone to bring
home. I’d like to share my life
the way swifts share the wind.
Some birds glide for months
without needing to touch
land. Traveling alongside
absence, I sift through the stillness
of a new winter. Every person
I’ve ever known is somewhere
else. The sun slips below
the earth’s scalp, early darkness
winnowing the daylight. A minuscule
snowdrift gathers on my eyelashes.
This closeness—it lasts a moment
before beginning to melt.
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Mollie O’Leary is a poet from Massachusetts. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. Mollie’s chapbook The Forgetting Curve is forthcoming through Poetry Online’s offline.onl chapbook series. Her poetry has appeared in Frontier Poetry, Chestnut Review, and elsewhere. She reads for GASHER journal. Find more of her work at mollieoleary.com.
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