I Close My Eyes on the Old World

Tomorrow, I’ll board my plane,
ending my temporary importance in this place,
here where dusk can last for hours, the water
ever silvery and shining, swans gliding dreamlike
along the calm waters of the lake in the park
where I push my grandson in his pram
and where I go to be alone.
The daughter we almost lost is home
from the hospital, weak and pale. The swans
glow white as light falls, white as antique
milk glass, white as flowers in a moon garden,
or shafts of fallen moonlight on the stairwell
my daughter haunts in her dressing gown,
her milk stopped up.

*

Kristen Staby Rembold is the author of two books of poetry, The Harvesters, 2023, and Music Lesson, 2019, both from FutureCycle Press. She has also published two chapbooks and a novel, Felicity (Mid-List Books). Her writing is forthcoming or has appeared in numerous periodicals, including Radar Poetry, Triggerfish Critical Review, The Hopper, South 85 Journal, and has also been nominated for Best of the Net.