Environmental Elegy
by Sierra Jacob
That exclamation of nodding light, dips. I
was born between the blued glows of it.
Sun glaring along each dark back reaping
what is washed ashore. Can’t you see us
leave the murmurations; water overflowed
its edges. Wreck a glassed sea to mean something.
Archeologists and historians and writers
reported in surprise that the brown hand had
been moved to print. Red print kindling immortal
held limestone, at the same time the European
placed his palm to the dry cave wall, to prove forward
thinking did not trickle down to the tropics. Call it
a ceremony: we wrinkled our feet in the water
because there was equal need to see ourselves last.
Sierra Jacob is an MFA candidate at the University of Montana, where she received the Richard Hugo Memorial Scholarship for poetry. She is currently a poetry editor for CutBank Literary Magazine. Her poetry has appeared and is forthcoming in Yemassee, Sonora Review, The Louisville Review, Compose, Cream City Review, LUMINA, Pacifica Literary Review, and others. She was born and raised in Ha`iku, Hawai`i.