Natalie Callum

Wyoming

The sea opens
before us. I don’t look back.
In this ocean, earth
and brush. Land—

this land. This
land, rolling, slowly
swells, landscape
breaking against our shore. I am

not afraid. Our spirits wait
in ancient robes—we are
coming. Wild
horses swim, black manes

floating. I understand
what it is to be close
and far. We were born
in water—now this. This vast

and arid sea,
unbroken by what it is
no longer. In the distance
dust rises like mist,

like fog, like God.

 

When Magnolias Bloom

-in memory of t.s.

I think of her when magnolias bloom—
the same blossom offering
to sky that filled the grounds

of youth. Fragmented memories
of her hands and pale eyes—her purpled
neck painted cream, flowers

round her casket. The words
we once exchanged, unatoned
in the infinite—

I didn’t know. I didn’t know

that death could come veiled, in the grim
night hands of another—
that time is but one ending.

The half-life haunts—like the bloom
that is cut before it ever fully
opens, ever touches

the warmth of setting sun, ever knows
the tenderness of gently
falling to green earth. I watch

the first magnolia open, purple
and cream blossom offered to sky,
and think how fragile this is—

that I should get to hold my husband’s hand, age
shining through our bodies like sunlight
and watch this—the slow and sacred

bloom of the magnolia.

Natalie Callum is a writer and poet living between St. Louis, Missouri and Wyoming. When she is not writing, she can be found outside free climbing and exploring with her much beloved husband. Her work has been published in Willawaw Journal and Amethyst Review.