...the phoenix outlives nine ravens, but we,
the rich-haired Nymphs ...outlive ten phoenixes.
Hesiod (c.700 BCE)

All morning ravens cry their dismay
calling up the dream
where you and I drive along the riverbank
over a stubble of trees
cut feet above the ground.
We follow no road, only the curve
of shore. I close my eyes
as we slide into the green ripple
where we sink, of course, like stones.
I remember not to breathe, surprised
at the painlessness of fear,
crank the window open wide enough
to swim into the filtered light, pull you
through the narrow space. We kick up
toward the memory of air,
break the surface, breathe down
into our deepest depths.

Now, the birds fly across the scarred land
on our southern boundary as if to survey
the damage exposed by sun’s light:
stumps reduced to a pile of smoldering ash;
but through the lacey curtain
that drapes the northern window,
the Rock Rose’s papery blooms
glow like flames.  

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Rebecca Clark has work in various journals, including Snow Monkey, StringTown, Pebble Lake Review; she has work forthcoming in Rattle, Pearl, Heliotrope, and others. She works as an attorney, coordinating a volunteer lawyer program, and lives in Washington's Skagit Valley with her husband and daughter.  

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