Sonnet (1) — Blackbird Archive

← v21n1, Spring 2022

He wanted us to think and

Said so. He wanted to have been

Something else, and was. He could carry

A child under each arm, and their skis,

Sheltered in a thicket. Here was a man

Who sat unmoving in a clearing and heard

Snowflakes crackling in the cold

As they fell. That view, so high: I see him

The way his friend describes, legs

Folded beneath him. I feel him listening.

memory nature

Katharine Coles

Katharine Coles is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently, Ghost Apples (forthcoming from Red Hen Press, 2023) and Wayward (Red Hen Press, 2019). She is also the author of the essay collection, The Stranger I Become: On Walking, Looking, and Writing (Turtle Point Press, 2021), and the memoir, Look Both Ways (Turtle Point Press, 2018). She is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. She is a distinguished professor in the Department of English at the University of Utah.