Words That Are Close

poetry by Melissa Goodrich

plover, seal, pledge, place, stent, flush, flight

a lover is not a bird

near shore, short-tailed

with long

pointed wings

nor the sea

torpedo-shaped

with four

flippers, nor a sealant

a ledge is not something

promised, bound by

promise, the

promise to give

nor lace a room,

region, or part

devoted

to a special purpose

a tent

is not a surgical device

to hold tissue

in place, as inside

a vessel of blood, keeping

the vessel open

to lush is not to glow

or be washed

out sudden with a flow

of water,

or startled

up from cover, said

of birds

nor is light a fleeting

as from

danger, a soaring

above, a set of stairs between

landings

---

Melissa Goodrich has been PANKed and Routed.  She's served as the co-editor of The Susquehanna Review and the poetry editor of RiverCraft the past two years.  As a senior, she's started becoming nostalgic, phoning old grade-school English teachers, exhuming retired poems...it has all of it been a pleasure.

Coming next week: nonfiction by Emily Northey