Mantis 18 (Spring 2020)
West Coast Poetry
Patricia Nelson
Those Who Have Been to the Fire
Those who have been to the fire
come back walking the ledge,
walk loose in a coat and a shadow.
They move slowly like the shade
toward what they know of home
and the light of its new strangeness.
They bear in their skin
the known openings,
the sentient ear and scar.
Is it loss or is it beauty: the change
that fastens at the window’s edge
quietly, like a spider’s silver wish?
PATRICIA NELSON is a former attorney who has worked for many years with the “Activist” group of poets formed by Lawrence Hart and currently led by John Hart. Her new book, Out of the Underworld, was recently released by Poetic Matrix Press.