Dear Longlost
dear summer dear spring dear wet sky of mine
my body lets me down
I have not written I am not writing
your name the only word I remember
again again and still I spend another season
dreaming of your mouth when the snow
stretches thin fades into the rivers and lakes
of our imaginary future everyone
emerges daffodil and crocus
greet our faces this is not a ritual
nor a sign this is what it means
to live in a body hope is a question do you
will you do you still please
Prayer With Wolves Approaching
Flames bite and spit. The forest will not burn.
Such haunting is not to be dismissed easily,
this murking place is not our friend. We followed
a trail of owl bones, bloody tufts of fur
until the light ran out. Thought
ourselves home. A glade
unbound by the physics of memory.
Ancient oaks tie black knots above,
roots bulge like rocks
under a carpet of fallen leaves,
footing disloyal. We make
promises we do not understand.
The earthquakes come as a surprise.
Storms we weather, floods we outlast,
others we do not. We kneel and ask
for more. The howls near.
Fire feats at the ragged edges
of the clearing, destroying nothing.
We learn patience. Learn to settle
for what we have and call it strength.
Amorak Huey’s fourth book of poems is Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy (Sundress Publications, 2021). Huey is co-author with W. Todd Kaneko of the textbook Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2018) and the chapbook Slash/Slash (Diode, 2021), Huey teaches writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.