Karen McPherson

Hippocampus

       Feelings adrift in a limbic sea, current-
swayed yet held in place, prehensile
tail curled around a pulsing
stem.
       Bony monster shelters in the seagrass.
Little rocking horse brooding on
navigation. Here are points
of reference, a library
of meanings.
        Here shadows, predators, vast
unpopulated spaces. Here memories
of everything I’m dying
to say though don’t yet
know how.

Karen McPherson is a post-academic, elderqueer poet and literary translator from Eugene, Oregon. Her poetry publications include Skein of Light (Airlie Press, 2014) and the chapbooks Sketching Elise (Finishing Line, 2012) and Long for This World (Seven Kitchens Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in literary journals including Beloit Poetry Journal, Cincinnati Review, Chicago Quarterly, Atlanta Review, and The Women’s Review of Books. She is a former editor in the Airlie Press poetry collective.