By Kelly Rowe

All morning I watched the inlet  
rushing back and forth 
like a woman packing up her house.  

Then I went out to climb over  
the rocks again; I love them,  
not just because they stay in one place,  

but for the way the shades  
of moss, bright green and dark, pulse,  
and underneath, the pink and silver veins. 

You think you saw me leave, waving  
from the scratched window of the ferry. 
But really, I’m still here;  

follow the clues—you’ll see how  
the stones gather at the edge  
of the water like a circle of old women 

who bring their handwork out of doors 
in spring; quiet women, who pause,  
nod at the sky as at a mirror,  

and at the copper plate of the beach, 
where, wave after wave, the sea,  
with its diamond needle, etches  

the bright kingdom below  
the cold slapping surface: 
far out, far out beyond the archipelago. 

    — To the memory of M.N., who departed, who remains

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Kelly Rowe’s debut collection, Rise Above the River (2023) won the Able Muse Book Award and was a finalist for the Arizona Book Award for Poetry. She is also the author of two chapbooks. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona where she works as a volunteer immigration attorney, representing undocumented women.