Hilary Sallick

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Radiance (as if from a center)

What is the feeling   that is
in me   outside me
when I lift my eyes
to the tops of the trees
where sunlight shines;

      and the leaves
are like birds
plunging down to earth
landing softly

     In the feeling
of the feeling I remember
ocean    the vast direction
and a little boat    we a family of
five on the boat    motor
stalled    rolling on the swells
and there’s only
one oar   my father tries
to turn us toward the way
we were headed   futile effort  
and we see   that it’s possible
to be lost     there in the immense
reality   then a larger boat comes
the people on board know
how to help    a cotter pin is needed
and they have one   fix
the motor   homeward we travel 

      oh loves of my life
there’s an ocean inside me

Hilary Sallick is the author of Love is a Shore (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2023), a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award; and Asking the Form (Cervena Barva Press, 2020). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in SoFloPoJo; Pensive; iamb: poetry seen and heard; Thimble; Action, Spectacle; Halfway Down the Stairs; Permafrost; Potomac Review; Notre Dame Review; and elsewhere. A teacher with a longtime focus on adult literacy, she lives in Somerville, MA. (www.hilarysallick.com)