Andrea Dickins
Oyster Bay
our daughter drowned, aged eight
the sea ever flat –
her treacherous illusion.
vines grown heavy;
the wisteria went unclipped this spring.
grey headlands stretch beyond our sight
and you, staring out the leaded window
its pane-seams like sky cracks.
her laughter floated out to sea,
the color of violets
in the pockets of the dead.
wisteria our private shroud now,
its leaves too sparsely covering
our naked grief.
Andrea Janelle Dickens is originally from the Blue Ridge Mountains and now lives in the Sonoran Desert, where she resides among the sunshine and saguaro cacti. Her work has appeared in New South, Ruminate, and The Wayfarer, among others. When not writing poems, she's making pottery in her ceramics studio or tending hives of bees.