by Grace Gilbert

i.
the mind is a room,
&&&&&a child against the window
listening for snow

ii.
drowned boy, still missing:
&&&&&smooth stone in god’s deep pocket
this wet, joyless thing

iii.
a sunken landscape
&&&&&the animal within me
makes space for meaning

iv.
grief lives within me
&&&&&a bumblebee trapped between
two strong panes of glass

v.
i am born each day
&&&&&just trying to remember
the shape of your hands
&
&

Grace Gilbert

Grace Gilbert’s recent poetics & lyric essays can be found in the Adroit Journal, Ninth Letter, the Minnesota review, plain china, Anomaly Literary Journal, Pretty Owl Poetry, Maudlin House, Twyckenham Notes, Vox Viola, storm of blue press, Sweet Literary Magazine, tilde, & the Gandy Dancer among others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a finalist in the Princemere Poetry Prize as well as the Adroit Prizes. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Pittsburgh where she consumes unholy amounts of cheese and dumplings.

Artist: Persephone Delatte