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.
