Gail White

Estrangement

The drink that we invented
I make and drink alone.
(A heart become a stone
has never yet relented.)

Where there were words and laughter,
silence falls like snow.
The drink that made us glow
now brings depression after.

But though there’s no salvation
in grief or memory,
to what we used to be
I pour out a libation.

Swimming Hole

The summer I swam
in the pool of your mind
there were too many stars
for my vision to find,
and love was not hopeless
as often it seemed,
for your mind fell asleep
and I swam as you dreamed.
Since then I’ve crossed rivers
and sailed over lakes,
had many adventures,
made several mistakes,
but never was fortune
so fondly inclined
as the summer I swam
in the pool of your mind.

Gail White is a widely published Formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light.  Her recent collections include Asperity Street and Catechism (both on Amazon). She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats.