The Daughters of Block Island

by Christa Carmen

It lords over the beach like an errant queen who’s lifted her heavy skirts and settled down beside a neighborhood tavern.

now that she’s here, that isolation feels like home.

It’s not only acceptable, but preferable, to leave well enough alone,

her too-full cup (of stars!)

“I’m sorry things went so poorly today.” She refrains from saying that things have gone poorly every day of her life.

I wanted to leave my mother behind, but I’ve been carrying her with me

I’m slipping you a candle as we pass one another in an abbey basement; I’m on my way to confession; you’re on your way back outside, aboveground, into the light.

There are too many specters with their hands on my hems.

Farewell, light, giving way to endless midnight. Hello, footsteps.

her bones knock against the sides of the partition like the limbs of a doll forced through the opening of a gift box.