Children hear of water-hoardings.
Lorelei floating gold cups, coaxing
gullible girls down. Ancient cities
settled by kelp and shells.
Rivers refusing tossed-in shoes,
certain that boys thought dead
are somewhere still, walking.
In autumn we puzzled our lake
with threadbare toys, scraps
and warpings, watching swells
lull and shellac our discards.
In winter we moved whisper-dust
rumours, of wakes under deep
prison glass, the lake’s keeping,
where the missing swam with
objects we once owned.
Officials would come,
piecing past a lacustrine spot,
with stop-walk reports:
there, the forest tarping
white-ambered tracks.
There, slumped trees
shouldering cuffs of wind.
There, a hut tired of
hearth-stories, rough nights
charred by tree-cuttings –
Cold shapes inhabit fables:
father winter, maiden daughters,
a queen’s snow-spool unraveling,
tales of caution restless, gathering,
a child’s body, ice-shard riddled,
growing numb on endless games.
By spring, our eyes are fogged
and frost-buckled, mirroring
only parables sharp and bleak.
Through cracks, we see a lake
brimming with a lost brother.
Header photograph © Asher.
Emily Osborne is the winner of The Malahat Review’s 2018 Far Horizons Award for Poetry. Her debut chapbook, Biometrical, was published by Anstruther Press (2018). Her poetry has been published in CV2, The Malahat Review, The Literary Review of Canada, The Antigonish Review, Canthius, Minola Review, and elsewhere. Emily earned a PhD in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature from the University of Cambridge, and her full-length book of Norse poetry translations, Quarrel of Arrows, is forthcoming from Junction Books. Emily serves as a poetry editor for Pulp Literature. She lives with her husband on Bowen Island, BC.
I find this poem inspiring. I especially love these phrases: “water-hoardings,” “Rivers refusing tossed-in shoes,” “whisper-dust/rumours,” and “frost-buckled.” Excellent work, Emily Osborne.