On an island where the days bloomed
white and hot, some sickness fed on me,
the heat, the eddy of your nearness.
The god-made love blew through us.
Dark it was, a shovelful of shadows.
A love like a prayer for emptiness.
We came to it by way of winds
of murder and betrayal, a weather
that spoke to who we were at heart.
The lightning in me blazed
across the instants when
I might have hesitated.
Patricia Nelson has worked with the “Activist” group of poets in Northern California. This is a Neo Modernist group. Her new book, Monster Monologues, is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.