by Katherine West
The globe of Earth has shrunk, a small balloon
losing air sinking against the blue blue sky
to land exactly in my hand, all mine
to know the pain of every land, all you
and you and you, all me in mirrors new
as stars on windy nights of sharpened light
that cuts my chest that makes me bleed your time
cut short then so is mine the years so few
now less the globe a shriveled wrinkled skin
I cup as gently as a fallen bird
my own true love I carry home to bed
I tuck you up, I slide beside so thin
we fit, an old and folded map, a world
of continents that kiss, of coasts that wed.
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, 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 and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado. Using the name Kit West, Katherine's new novel When Night Comes: A Christmas Carol Revisited has just been released, and a selection of poetry entitled Raising the Sparks will come out in 2021, both published by Breaking Rules Publishing. She is presently at work on the sequel to When Night Comes. It is called Slave: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Revisited. She is also an artist.
