Kathleen Fagley

Bio: Kathleen Fagley is a Pushcart-nominated poet whose chapbook, How You Came to Me was published by Finishing Line Press in July 2012. Her work has appeared in The Stillwater Review, Memoir Journal, Cutthroat, The Comstock Review, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Fourth River, Switched-on Gutenberg and Nimrod Journal. She taught poetry and creative nonfiction at Keene State College in Keene, NH, from 2016 until 2020. She is a graduate of the New England College’s MFA program in poetry.

Journey

Midway across Gardiner Bayswimming a perfect Australian crawlshe begins to think love is like a lake—unknowablein its deepest parts; black watereven at mid-day.Thought breaks her rhythmshe becomes conscious of her body,white chalky skin covered in goosebumps,her thin reedy breath.
*
Fishermen say this part of the lakeis unfathomable,miles down there may be rivers and caves.If if she let herself goshe would driftdown through glacial historyto the lake’s beginning—a sandy bottom rippled like muscle.
*
Cold currents wrap her limbs like snakes she kicks off.She moves forward,breaking the black water intopieces of shimmering crystal. *
Floating on her back she hearsthe sound of lake humming— a resonant ommmmm like a finger rubbing the rim of a singing bowl.Then closer to shore,another sound: a knocking on doors—doors opening and closing, scraping of wood against wood.
*
A brush of silver-coined fishmoves through her as if she were transparent.

Company


Bats are everywhere and nowherelike floaters in my field of vision,insubstantial as charcoal crushedbetween the fingers, then blown away.
Our intentions collide, this dusk in Julywhen they dive into my portion of sky.Leave me be to lonely ruminations.
I feel their wild rush overheadhear their little mouths talking, talking;my response, a startled Oescapes from my mouth.
And O by time I look upthey have moved on to the open meadowand I feel lonelier than before.

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