7/19/10

Bookmark
By Karen Kelsay


He was her bookmark, placed between
the linen pages, embroidered golden, rising
handsomely from a beloved story.

On rainy days when sorrow-soaked
olive trees peered through her bedroom
window and clouds wrung cold hands

over nearby hilltops, she removed
him from the leaves and read
about a calm so deep it glowed
like fairy hair in the garden--beyond

the blossom and seed of all comprehension,
of longings without end that scratch
like a bramble, sharp as a dog bite--
and whispers through an open window

that turn skies medieval blue, of midnight
fragments, a hurt bird’s complaint,
the edgeless regions of love and starlit
lonesomeness.

He was her bookmark, holding her captive
in another time--living in the purple twilight
of the weeping beech leaves.


- - -
Karen Kelsay is a native Californian who spent

most of her childhood weekends on a boat.

Her husband is British, and she travels to England

regularly to visit family and enjoy the countryside.



Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize

and author of five chapbooks, Karen's poems

have appeared a variety of magazines including

The New Formalist, Boston Literary Magazine

and The Lyric.