by Lily Greenberg

Lightning chaser, maker of pies, 
she who reminds violins how to sing— 
 
none of that matters here. Naked, 
we become unknown to each other. 
 
Thrown water on fire, a blanket of heat, 
and we are ten women sighing in the dark. 
 
Hole in the ice tonight. Chatter spins  
its wheel (will you, won’t you?) tires out. 
 
Full, empty, these melt into simple words. 
We are young birch twigs gathered into a whisk, 
 
night birds layering question and song, 
the weak call of the shofar, we are laughing. 
 
We do not think, charge stinging feet  
through the snow and plunge. Electric, 
 
back again, awake. What falls from us, 
this clearing, we carry in our eyes.  


____

Lily Greenberg is a poet and writer from Nashville, Tennessee. Her work has appeared in Hobart, storySouth, Third Coast Magazine, and Hole in the Head Review, among others. She is a 2021 Breadloaf scholar and the recipient of the 2021 Dick Shea Memorial Award for Poetry judged by Jennifer Militello. Lily holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of New Hampshire, and lives in Portland, Maine where she is working on her debut book of poems. Find her on Twitter @lily_greenberg.