Hannah Riffell

Caravan

On a blue-marbled water, bristling
with a caravan of toothpick ships, I 

am a hand, plumbing the shallows
for a fossil, any substance long-accustomed 

to being. I pretend I am the open hand,
and that the great ships disappeared 

on the night when all the thickets shifted
and the songs we sang in the dark 

became sounds that still hound our children.
I imagine more than I know, and know 

more than I forget, and forget more
than I can replace with things imagined. 

See, the horse is bridled with barbed wire,
the shore tattered with gulls. I am 

a child playing with shadows, the mother
mourning on the cliffs, the father weeping 

by the kettle, the dog sniffling
at the open door, the sister running, 

running. Dawn breaks. I am suspended
above the stone-cold sea, afraid

that whatever I happen to unhand
will drown. Once there was a name 

for every shadow on the water,
every dark shape in the sky but I 

have lost the rarest ones, even those
that once belonged to me.

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A graduate of Calvin University, Hannah Riffell is a writer from Grand Rapids, MI. Her work is featured in PANK Magazine, Heavy Feather Review, Blue Marble Review, Dialogue and The National Writers Series Journal.