JOHN SAVOIE

8/6 

 

She pressed a pickled plum into the rice
(it glowed a crimson sun) then wrapped the ball
first in nori, then furoshiki, and stepped
outside: the summer morning faintly thrummed
under three high crosses, and one speck falling,
and though she knew neither Bruegel nor Auden,
she thought of her husband missing for years,
and now her son, fifteen, shipped this spring.

And the wave of light rolled right through her.
Within the roar a stillness opened, and there
he stood in sorrow for the things he saw
and did, yet strangely graced, as if forgiven,
and here, her son, his dark befuddled eyes,
and with that cloth she wiped his tears away.

Winner of Prize Americana, the poetry collection Sehnsucht, featuring "8/6," is AVAILABLE NOW from The Poetry Press of Press Americana.

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