Green Linden Press

Dream Book: Yellow Gingkoes

Golden tones’ arrival—eased off the tree
& deep in their pile. No browning

or dried noise, asking honesty.
I am not supposed to remember these.

From such an accumulation, one
might select three or four to bring home

& tuck in a book. How to choose
the number or which will round it,

I don’t ask. I see them in their sum.
I make a summary as best I can.

First

What was the first line
I occupied—

I taught her
to talk. I became

my ears
I became the route

sound went
on its way to the place

it was heard.
I lived

to serve
her word, carried it

in my own
confirming sounds.

Where she pointed
I bent, identified

all I’d learned.
I was birthed.

Rae Gouirand is the author of two collections of poetry, Glass is Glass Water is Water (Spork Press, 2018) and Open Winter (winner of the Bellday Prize, Bellday Books, 2011); the chapbooks Little Hour (winner of the Swan Scythe Chapbook Contest, Swan Scythe Press, 2022), Jinx (winner of the Summer Kitchen Competition, Seven Kitchens Press, 2019) and Must Apple (winner of the Oro Fino Competition, Educe Press, 2018); and a short work of nonfiction, The History of Art (winner of the Open Reading Competition, The Atlas Review, 2019). She leads several long-running independent workshops in northern California and online, including the cross-genre workshop Scribe Lab, and lectures in the Department of English at UC-Davis.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2022