Two Poems by Lindsay D’Andrea

baptist pond meditation

morning in the house above water,
the air silvered purple beyond blinds.

there are ways to forget,
even here, where we start again.

if i turn to one side, what’s left
of this pain will pour out, join

the pond. a heron
upon his familar rock flies off

before i can get a good look
at the stain of his feathers,

burn or birthmark. i’d seen pictures
of this place before arriving,

did not guess at the emptiness
it would allow to glitter

upon wet air twisted
with the red scent of cedar.

an island at its center: head of a drain
waiting to be lifted.

DESCENDING INTO WAIPI’O

Don’t go down unless you are prepared
to come back up. There are signs
warning against it—the steep and only way.
Valley of Kings hunting home by stars,
wet-slicked green, called kapu
for those who could never belong.
Imagine how lost we’d be—we two,
drifting on a purple sea, the night sky
unwilling to guide us. I ask the question:
which of us would eat the other first?
We can laugh, our lives so easy. A waterfall
floats into mist. A river-laden road
hushes toward the black sand beach.
It’s not strangers on horses we wanted
to find, not the local man scowling
as we gaze down a flooded path.
We’re not privy to such challenges.
The tick-tock of hooves echoes
off sheer unknowable cliffs.

Lindsay D’Andrea writes and publishes across all genres. New poems are recently available or forthcoming in The Baltimore Review, Ploughshares, Iron Horse Literary Review, Harpur Palate, North American Review, and others. She earned her MFA from Iowa State University in 2014 and has received support from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She currently lives in the Philadelphia area with her family.