Susan Tichy


60° NORTH | TIDE-SCOUR

a rusty, uneven
sheen, trading
in tones between
machair & sea
to brush down deep
the grain
of prediction
a light described as
discontent
grew
glided back
as it fell
darted
shimmered
thick
among rocks :
there was, everywhere
a difficulty
fossil pollen
ghost forest
or simply hill
cluttered with haze
a hint of air
both south & west
the sun slowly
thickening—
as delicate spine
stretches under
steers in close
a migrant
of permanent storm
severed
vernacular
river or rock
grass-root-sea
fissured
by wings, up-
tilted, a continent
split, upended :
one stained thread
in a tidal pool :
to turn, if turned
resists
light
is silent, wetted
to stand unread :
a pulled performance
of shore ceases, wave
by wave, sound
as rock, as rock
is form
lingering, a
small transparent
terror, categorically
permanent, it
toils, repeats this
tide-scour
uneven trade
in search
of surface :
slender beach
no more
than an in-
clination

Susan Tichy

Susan Tichy is the author of six books, most recently The Avalanche Path in Summer (poems, mountains) and Trafficke, a mixed-form investigation of family, race, and language, both from Ahsahta Press. This poem is from North|Rock|Edge: Shetland 2017/2019, forthcoming from Free Verse Editions. Now Professor Emerita at George Mason University, she lives in Colorado.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2020