Joanne Clarkson

Bone Window

Mornings, Georgia O’Keeffe walked
the high desert until she found
her frame, white and weathered,
the famous pelvis. Kneeling,
holding it up, heavy, the beast
re-created her blue.

Once I hiked inland dunes
and found a tiny white fossil.
The guide warned I couldn’t keep it.
I knew it was a shell.
I grew up by the sea.
It took me home in wind song.

Mornings, Georgia wandered the wide
canvas of mesa and dunes until she
found her window. Angle of vision
to make the world her own.

Evenings, I comb the beach
where sand, horizon and sky
might be my shadow
through the arc of a crescent moon.

Joanne Clarkson‘s sixth poetry collection, Hospice House, was released by MoonPath Press in 2023. Her poems have been published in such journals as Poetry Northwest, Nimrod and Alaska Quarterly Review. Clarkson has Masters Degrees in English and Library Science, has taught and worked for many years as a professional librarian. After caring for her mother through a long illness, she re-careered as a Hospice RN. She lives in Port Townsend, WA.