Ronda Piszk Broatch

AN OLD STORY

I’ve become accustomed to isolation,
how dark the beginning 

of yet more dark. In its shadow
pain fingers me

like a lover, and often  
there are stars. Sometimes in the dark 

Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3, and sometimes 
I overestimate what it means 

to keep my heart where it can be seen. 
Beneath skin, so many blue rivers. 

Oh, holy holy, ah, purity purity eeh, 
sweetly sweetly sings 

the hermit thrush. In the morning, 
I was just a minor key, grieving.

Poet and photographer, Ronda Piszk Broatch is the author of Lake of Fallen Constellations, (MoonPath Press, 2015). Ronda is the recipient of an Artist Trust GAP Grant, and her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart prize. Her journal publications include Blackbird, 2River, Sycamore Review, Missouri Review, Palette Poetry, and Public Radio KUOW’s All Things Considered, among others.