Threshold

She was a lovely creature,
and I have her bones
at the arches of all the doors.

We have had sudden summer showers
of lovers move through this place,
but now she, of heavy wings,
gorges on quiet and loss.

The sleeping, whole sun
rolled over the soft tufts of grass
of her frayed banks,
kissed her on the face.

Her fingers and toes like roots
began to uncover stones
and reclaim the castles the water
unburied in pieces.

Amy L. Fair, a West Virginia native, makes her home in rural Oregon, where she teaches at a small community college and plans to grow old without any grace whatsoever.