[A naval man visiting]



A naval man visiting that tribe slept in a dugout hole in the ground for numberless nights—did the animals come? Why yes, yes their breath and behind my eyes, spools of light promised survival: have we survived this night?

A bat flew into my bedroom, set the wind chimes singing—I turned in my hot bed and the cat yowled. The bat roosted in the chimes. What’s a girl to do: (a) Pull the screen from the window and wait. (b) Relinquish her roost and glide out over the murky night.

I love you, I’m sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you. Time lights everything. Time gives out. A girl lifts off her icy grid into paradise. The island loves her until the island sweetly, unceremoniously, tilts her off.

Opal C McCarthy is a poet, teacher and joy worker living in Minneapolis. Her poems have appeared in alice blue review, Le Petite Zine, The Pinch, and elsewhere. Opal's pamphlet, Surge: An Oral Poetics is available from eohippus labs press, and her debut poetry collection is forthcoming from Tinderbox Editions in 2016.