Natalie Korman

Miriam

Miriam, in the spine of the book and the black
of the ink, in the white of the stitches
in the dimples of the brick and the soil at the base

in the tender oaks along the trailside
in the perfect coffee spaceships of the acorns
in the haunch of the stern bobcat in the meadow

She comes along in the green rectangle, and in the blue
the book is polished, soft
solid and malleable
the memory of reading arrives
like a tender brush across the shoulder

Miriam by the river where the salmon rush
slipping down into the shadowed banks
out of sight and into memory

Miriam, unharnessed by the portrait
faces turned to only memory
no daub of shadow on the brow
only the purple lattice of the afternoon bramble
and the hush of the return to trees
after the harshness
of the open country