Tunnel of Green — Blackbird Archive

← v14n2, Fall 2015

sinking into deeper green,

gulls flapping

like circus tents.

I am walking,

walking, always

toward you, trapped

beneath a soft mat

of sky. Flat grass

on either side. Banyan trees.

Wild birds, the likes

of which you will never see.

So much has been lost

or damaged. Coral rock wall,

sweep of evergreen, orchids abiding

in trees. Yes, orchids. None of it ours,

none of it actual. Yet I lived there

for years beside you, moving

room to room, breathing

in the sea. That huge cage

of birds beneath the live oaks,

neighbors calling

to complain. I wish

I had asked one: Do you see me

at the window? Am I real?

Whose dust is this I sweep?

memory place home

Dannye Romine Powell

Dannye Romine Powell is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Nobody Calls Me Darling Anymore (Press 53, 2015). Her 1994 collection, At Every Wedding Someone Stays Home , won the First Book Award from the University of Arkansas Press. Her poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Magazine , Birmingham Arts Journal , Southern Poetry Review , Harvard Review Online , and 32 Poems , among others. She has received fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council. She writes about books and authors for the Charlotte Observer . Photo by Alyssa Romine