{"id":480,"date":"2018-08-16T16:42:18","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T16:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=480"},"modified":"2018-08-16T16:44:44","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T16:44:44","slug":"poem-of-the-month-islanders-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=480","title":{"rendered":"Poem of the Month: Islanders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/images.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-477 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/images.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"183\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">He strokes her hip, smoothes her<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">as if she were wet clay<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">her mother sits nearby<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">tries not to watch<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">her daughter shape herself to him<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The party floats around them<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">music like a hungry cat<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">slides against their lolling dance<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">the mother recalls her own hands on that rounded body<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">her fingers curl toward deserted palms<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">her lap lies hollow<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">an abandoned nest<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">in a felled tree<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">His lips sculpt slow words, barely smile<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">he bends his neck to arch over her<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">supple beneath the cowl of his heat<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">the mother recalls, too, lodging once herself<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">in the swollen niche<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">her daughter now inhabits<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">seagirt colony of two<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">She turns chastely away<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">searches the dark sky through window-glass<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">their reflection overlays the night<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">wavers among the constellations<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">the mother rises, pockets her hands<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">unmoored lightship, she drifts out of the room<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">her wake slaps unnoticed<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s1\">at her daughter&#8217;s back<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cIslanders\u201d was published in the anthology <i>Exquisite Reaction<\/i>, Andrew Mountain Press, Hartford, CT, 2000.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He strokes her hip, smoothes her as if she were wet clay her mother sits nearby tries not to watch <a href=\"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=480\" class=\"more-link\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-noellesickelswp","post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-allposts","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":481,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions\/481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}