Elizabeth Savage is a professor of English and poetry editor for Kestrel at Fairmont State University in West Virginia. Her most recent poetry and criticism appear in Denver Quarterly, Hotel Amerika, Journal of Modern Literature, and Quo Anima: Innovation & Spirituality in Contemporary Women’s Poetry. Detail is her second chapbook with Dancing Girl. In 2020, Furniture Press will publish Daylight Scoured, her third book of poems.
Pacific
Night begins chopping apart the next day, under
dressed, the will pressed, the end
of the line. Salt moves mountains, then
splits waves godless as the green. All
intention is arranged by the effort. The oysters
taste of it, seasoned with hesitation
an ocean of refusal is what stood you
here. Cut by wind
reduced to reversals of light. Without
a compass, no other place
is in reach. Nowhere else is near
but the wind, crowded with reflection
The glinting beach empties of struggle. Once
the fight readied your skin