Volume 16:1, Winter 2015
Sonnet Issue
Lake Rosseau, Canada
When we reached the rented summer house we found
chipmunks had set up camp in the large kitchen
Quicksand could swallow you, legs and arrns and all,
especially if you were a child and a girl-child at that
Leeches latched onto us girls arms and legs
and were to be pulled off immediately
The green rowboat sidled into reeds
or cattails, ferrying sisters on splintery plank seats
On land we sisters took turns climbing into
the washtub to roll sideways down the piney slope
The resinous pines quickened the air and pine
needles fell, a snug blanket over the hills
Nights, the cry of the loon crossed over water.
You could tell the man in the moon had a secret.
Kelly Cherry is a former Poet Laureate of Virginia. She serves on the electorate of Poets Corner at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Cherry has published 22 full-length books (9 of poetry), 9 chapbooks, and 2 translations of classical drama. She is Eudora Welty Professor Emerita of English and Evjue-Bascom Professor Emerita in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.