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.