If You’re Lucky--By Maralee Gerke--United States

If You’re Lucky

you share the same
favorite star;
you know- the brightest one
in the center of Orion’s belt

or sit side by side
barefoot in the sand
watching waves break
on an empty beach

walk through a dusty
marketplace, holding hands,
laughing, eating figs, wrapping
yourself in vermilion silk

And if you’re very lucky

you can hold the
wounded half of your soul
in trembling arms
until it can no longer stay.

Then release it
like the whitest dove to soar,
while you, rooted to the earth
stand and watch it go.

Maralee Gerke lives and writes in Madras, Oregon. She is and avid reader and gardener. She describes herself as a work in progress. Her poems have been published in Calyx, Exit Thirteen, Moonset, Bathtub Gin, Anthology, Nerve Cowboy, Avocet, and Tigers Eye. She has published two books of poems and has had poetry and prose accepted in several anthologies. Her work can be seen online at Shadow Poetry, Long Story Short, and Moontown Café. She recently recorded 4 poems for the Oregon Poetic Voices Project. They can be heard at oregonpoeticvoices.org One of her poems( Refuge) was recently selected to be printed as a limited edition broadside by the Penland School of Crafts.