MOVING WORDS HOME

Moving Words Series II

In Sleep

Under moonlight
the valley opens calmly
to the sea pushing back, pushing back,
uncountable,
unaccountably gentle,
digging at the gravelly beach, and,
under moonlight,
to the shallow shoveling of your breathing
in, in sleep,
and out at the night.

David McAleavey

I Have Hungered for the Flat Gold

I have hungered for the flat gold of your foot.
I have known myself indulgent, shivering
at the press of curved palm against flesh
that is planed, a breathing metal plate
yielding sharp current. It is the alien
quality of your heat that drives and grounds me.
Your body is a shadowless bronze desert.
Your coppery eyelid knows no fold.

Naomi Thiers

Dripstone

We are trapped inside that hollow place
anger carves beneath the ground.
It is grey down there and the echo
of each word we say comes back
as if it were never spoken. New tears
drip from the ceiling,
joining old tears
hardened on the floor.
Only solid pillars meet
in the space between us.

Jacqueline Jules

About the Series II Poets:

Jacqueline Jules is the author of two books for children, The Grey Striped Shirt (Ales Design, 1995) and Once Upon a Shabbos (Kar-Ben, 1998). She is pursuing a Masters of Library Science at the University of Maryland, and is a book reviewer for School Library Journal and Children’s Literature.

David McAleavey teaches English at George Washington University and is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Holding Obsidian (Washington Writers Publishing House, 1985). He has edited an anthology of Washington writers, Evidence of Community (GW University, 1984), and a collection of essays, Washington and Washington Writers (GW, 1986).

Naomi Thiers is the author of Only the Raw Hands Are Heaven (Washington Writers Publishing House, 1992). She works as an Aide and Writing Teacher at Montessori School of McLean.

MOVING WORDS HOME