Retrieval, by Lucy Griffith

The Unburdening, by Lucy Corwin (UK) contemporary

Retrieval
           
In a pool
beneath the sun-stained glass
seal-sleek
she drifts           weightless
trusting the water.
 
She’s slipped the grip
of a hurried life and 
it’s larceny,
 
remembering where she began.
This body in liquid, suspended―
corded to sun               corded to air
slowing the ending
by finding the beginning,
 
floating in this sacred pause.
No longer parched and starved―
breath by breath
 
breath by breath
lifting to light,   
she retrieves her skin. ​

Lucy Griffith

Happiest on a tractor named Mabel, Lucy Griffith lives on a ranch beside the Guadalupe River near Comfort, Texas. As a retired psychologist and rancher, she explored the imagined life of the Burro Lady of Far West Texas in her debut poetry book. We Make a Tiny Herd was published by Main Street Rag and has gone on to win the Wrangler Prize for Poetry as well as the Willa Literary Award for Poetry. Lucy received a Bread Loaf Scholarship in Poetry. Wingbeat Atlas, poems and images of our citizens of the sky, has just been released by FlowerSong Press.