By Kathleen Jesme

The border was right there a river

another source a permeable frontier one without walls

a stone’s throw to a different country although I never threw

a stone that far. Instead I rowed across

threw down my anchor by the weed bed by the shore

by the nesting birds by the birds hiding

from me in the weeds and along the shore by the fish

silent in the shallows perhaps aware of the dark shadow of my boat

by the changes

I had made by being there I rested quietly in the boat never putting one

foot       out       onto       the       shore       of       another

country.


Kathleen Jesme’s latest collection of poems is Albedo, from Ahsahta Press. She is the author of four other collections of poems, including Meridian (Tupelo Press, winner of the Snowbound Prize) and The Plum-Stone Game (Ahsahta Press). She is a graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.

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