Sentient by Lee Sharkey


Desire passed through me                         So I became terrain

I rested on myself                         My roots extended

I mapped my veins                         The blood that scored me

Became the map I’d drawn                         With pen and ink and wash

I read my history there                         Armies that dragged their weight across

Languages that flowered and folded                         Buckwheat ripening and the sorrow songs

What came for me would come                         Was this the garden

 

Lee Sharkey is the author of Calendars of Fire (Tupelo 2013) and three other full-length poetry collections. She is the recipient of the Abraham Sutzkever Centennnial Translation Prize, Zone 3’s Rainmaker Award, and the Maine Arts Commission’s 2010 Fellowship in Literary Arts and is the co-editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal.