Panacea
Tangled yellow grass turns chrome
under a gibbous prairie moon,
light sharp enough to saw bones.
Wind keens and sweeps the wells
of grief clean as an empty cabin.
Wilderness — its lure and demise —
the unmet hunger of human eyes.
*
Gail Thomas’ books are Odd Mercy, Waving Back, No Simple Wilderness, and Finding the Bear. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies including CALYX, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, and Mom Egg Review. Among her awards are the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press for Odd Mercy, the Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, and the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back. Thomas teaches for the Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshops and has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Ucross. “Panacea” is included in Thomas’ forthcoming fifth collection Rust & Bloom.
