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Chelsea Rathburn
Goodreads Author
Born
in The United States
Website
Genre
Member Since
July 2007
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Still Life with Mother and Knife: Poems
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published
2019
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2 editions
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A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia (Wormsloe Foundation Nature Books)
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A Raft of Grief: Poems
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published
2013
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The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood
by
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published
2022
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2 editions
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The Shifting Line
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published
2005
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The Southern Review 48.2: Spring 2012
by
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published
2012
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A Raft of Grief
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UNUSED LINES
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Raft of Grief
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“I blame that little village in Spain,
the one with the whitewashed houses
in a crescent along the sea,
a fleet of pastel fishing boats,
and that celebrated coffee with brandy.
A sour wedge of apple lurked
at the bottom like a tea-leaf fortune.
Because we couldn't afford the fish
we ate pizza with peaches and oregano
on the beach, the sun and breeze conspiring.
Seeing us there beneath the cliffs
and the postcards of the cliffs,
who wouldn't have predicted luck and beauty?
Can I be blamed for loving it all
and thinking it was you I loved?”
―
the one with the whitewashed houses
in a crescent along the sea,
a fleet of pastel fishing boats,
and that celebrated coffee with brandy.
A sour wedge of apple lurked
at the bottom like a tea-leaf fortune.
Because we couldn't afford the fish
we ate pizza with peaches and oregano
on the beach, the sun and breeze conspiring.
Seeing us there beneath the cliffs
and the postcards of the cliffs,
who wouldn't have predicted luck and beauty?
Can I be blamed for loving it all
and thinking it was you I loved?”
―
“London returns in damp, fragmented flurries
when I should be doing something else. A scrap
of song, a pink scarf, and I’m back to curries
and pub food, long, wet walks without a map,
bouts of bronchitis, a case of the flu,
my halfhearted studies, and brooding thoughts
and scanning faces in every bar for you.
Those months come down to moments or small plots,
like the bum on the Tube, enraged that no one spoke,
who raved and spat, the whole car thick with dread,
only to ask, won’t someone tell a joke?
and this mouse of a woman offered, What’s big and red
and sits in the corner?
A naughty bus.
Not funny, I know. But neither’s the story of us.”
―
when I should be doing something else. A scrap
of song, a pink scarf, and I’m back to curries
and pub food, long, wet walks without a map,
bouts of bronchitis, a case of the flu,
my halfhearted studies, and brooding thoughts
and scanning faces in every bar for you.
Those months come down to moments or small plots,
like the bum on the Tube, enraged that no one spoke,
who raved and spat, the whole car thick with dread,
only to ask, won’t someone tell a joke?
and this mouse of a woman offered, What’s big and red
and sits in the corner?
A naughty bus.
Not funny, I know. But neither’s the story of us.”
―
“Squatting in the coppery mud of the drainage ditch
behind my cousin’s house, we searched for fish,
saw none. We found a speckled frog instead,
unspooling a long, gelatinous thread
of black eggs in the water. Then fire ants—
my feet a blaze of pain, a fumbling dance,
and fact and memory begin to stutter.
What happened next? What curses did I utter?
And how did I ever get back over the fence?
I remember having a kind of reverence
for the whole affair: the pity I got, each bite
growing large and lustrous as a pearl, my tight
and swollen toes. I must have liked the pain.
What else would make me prod again, again?
A whole week hobbling barefoot on the lawn,
and still I missed the welts when they were gone.”
―
behind my cousin’s house, we searched for fish,
saw none. We found a speckled frog instead,
unspooling a long, gelatinous thread
of black eggs in the water. Then fire ants—
my feet a blaze of pain, a fumbling dance,
and fact and memory begin to stutter.
What happened next? What curses did I utter?
And how did I ever get back over the fence?
I remember having a kind of reverence
for the whole affair: the pity I got, each bite
growing large and lustrous as a pearl, my tight
and swollen toes. I must have liked the pain.
What else would make me prod again, again?
A whole week hobbling barefoot on the lawn,
and still I missed the welts when they were gone.”
―
¡ POETRY !
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— last activity Oct 05, 2025 02:11PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read ...more
