by Katherine West
 |
| Graphic by Katherine West. |
The silenced majority
that some day
will decide
which small piece of the sky
belongs to them
—Rigoberta Menchú quoted in Poetry Like Bread.
70% of Americans don’t trust politicians to make abortion policy. —19thNews
Today it is cloudy
I can’t see the sky at all
I have to imagine it
the way it was
when I was young
when life was a blue door
opening
on an even bluer
even bigger sky
Some days
the sky was so blue
it was almost purple
and I could see
all the way
to Mexico
The birds seemed to fly higher
farther
taking me with them
to new lands
where all the women
grew wings
wrote books
started businesses
ran for office
got married, or not
bore children, or not
became stronger as they aged
It was a blueberry sky
with something infinite about it,
an exuberant potential
I gobbled this up
when I was young—
it became my marrow
and a good thing too
since the clouds
seem to be here to stay
I carry infinity
inside me
a multitude of blue doors
that I open
one by one
day by day
And there are others
doing the same
all over the world
The sky is falling
and we
we are patching it
putting it back up
wiping it clean
of clouds
We are passing out binoculars
to those
with faulty vision
We are leaving
blue footprints behind
everywhere we go
We know
there are those who erase
our footprints
who tell everyone
they meet
that we were never here
But we are here
We aren’t going anywhere—
and there are a lot of us
Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, Writers Resist, Feminine Collective, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico, the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado, and the Tombaugh Gallery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She is also an artist.