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Published: Wed Apr 15 2020
Salman Toor, Fag Puddle with Candle, Shoe, and Flag (detail), 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, N.Y. Photo: Farzad Owrang.
Glacial

After you finally chose me and my divorce
_             _was final, I bought the brass, orb-shaped
locket with a hand painting inside,

 

impossibly small, of a glacier. Brush
_             _strokes thin as hairs, seeming almost
accidental. It felt then like I could mock

your pace because you’d finally made it,
_             _mock your silence because you’d finally
spoken up. I wouldn’t know for years

 

that glaciers produce a clamor
_             _like thunder, and while I did know
that only ten percent of a growler crests

above the water, I wouldn’t understand,
_             _until I saw it myself, that ice is always
moving, and fast. We blinked at Bear Glacier

_             _and the icebergs rearranged themselves.
Blinked, and one, glowing from within
_             _like a tumbled gem, rolled over to show us

its belly, or, you might say, a new face.

See what's inside AGNI 91

Katherine Fallon is the author of two chapbooks: The Toothmaker’s Daughters (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Demoted Planet (Headmistress Press, forthcoming). Her work has appeared in Colorado Review, AGNI, Juked, Meridian, Foundry, The Best New Poets, and elsewhere. She teaches at Georgia Southern University. (updated 4/2021)

 

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