In the morning she was an opening 
to another room, not a door, more 

like a window, an opaque pane
where the light, bending slightly, 

shone like the sound of darkness,
shimmered like the call of a pair 

of veeries whose songs circle each
other. Through her mouth the day 

passed, clocked its pains and sorrows,
the leaves turned in the wind and

looking west the sun hissed on the sea’s
cold horizon. Through her came her

mother’s voice, so far away that she 
could remember it only in rain. 

A small fish slipped through, 
threading its thin body along

the softness of the river’s lithe
current. Through her opening 

the day flowed like sand from one
side of the hour to the next. Filled

one room with beaches, then the next
and the next, until they reached the ocean.

All open, she could enter and swim, 
become porpoise, water, molecule, air.




____

Rebecca Siegel lives and writes in Vermont. Her poems have appeared in Bloodroot Literary Magazine, as part of PoemCity Montpelier, Dust Poetry Magazine, Analog Magazine, Goat’s Milk Magazine, Zócalo Public Square, Container’s Multitudes series, Straight Forward Poetry, and elsewhere.