You Who Won't Swim Outside Bathwater by Corinna Rae Reilly

You Who Won't Swim Outside Bathwater

by Corinna Rae Reilly

hush · issue 4

 

Antler or branch, the string of you
untangles from me slow. Always


measure,                         measure,
measure, denying the dance
of things. Oh,
                               so scientific.
But now, frustration


bombs back on you and I ha-
ha into your thighs.         You
            who pretends deaf              to my whistle
as I basket thorn and holly,


find it pulsing
in the blood. Sharp work
requires skill,       love
                                of the throb.


             Loud as winter, I whistle.
You la-la-la
and close your eyes.


 

Corinna Rae Reilly

Corinna lives surrounded by trees in New York's Hudson Valley where she shares a home with her husband, two dogs, and cat. While she has never stopped creating, her work has recently returned to a poetry practice that began decades ago with a BA in Literature and Writing from SUNY Purchase. Her poems explore relationship, memory, and the natural world through a feminist lens.