The Poetry Marathon

To ask if there is some mistake

is to suggest I know

right from wrong

convex from concave

my place on a spectrum

I travel but don’t always get to define

or even see at all sometimes.

But I will answer because

that path calls out to me

subterranean and secret

as does a strident urge to

travel both by land and

by sea simultaneously.

Only philosophers and lazy people

see the choice as contradictory.

water swallows me whole and

I push myself upwards to the surface breaking through

jubilant. until today. until i learn you are gone. and now the

surface is receding

becoming a small speck of light

i stop trying to reach.

Here we go…

I’m Jill. I live in the Central Valley of California. I have a daughter. I play the accordion.