The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Art Nahill

Fieldstones

Glacial

buried beneath

epochs of decay

they

mark the margins

of this field

exhumed

fitted

one atop another

prominence

to hollow

held by heft

instead of mortar.

Mother

often I wished for you

a tenderness

that could break

you open

like the geodes

we’d sometimes unearth

exposing

all the jagged

crystals.

Ophidiophobia

Every fear

has its proper

name

in the heart’s

compendium;

this morning 

I surprised

one

sunning beside

the fieldstone wall

a thick

stippled

question mark

I blindly answered

with

the garden spade—

every darkness

with

its perfect

reason.