3 Poems by Irene Latham

Cloud Study

All afternoon we lay together
without apology as the flock
grazes blue fields shepherded
by the sun. You can't corral
them, no matter how long you call --
wind scatters them like orphans
of plague or war, striates them
like stretch marks or unremembered scars.
We learn flesh will tell you everything,
if you let it.


To kiss

is to harness
an octopus;

to drop anchor
in the eye of a hurricane;

to map tidepools
while sharks circle your plastic raft.


Sixteen Words for Love
Set ablaze,
I say yes,

raw earth
exposed
by snowmelt.

We refocus;
ocean
is our map.


Bionote

Irene Latham is a poet and novelist from Birmingham, Alabama. She has served as poetry editor for Birmingham Arts Journal since 2003, and her third volume of poetry The Sky Between Us is forthcoming from Blue Rooster Press in 2014. Visit her at irenelatham.com.