It’s been four years, and every year the summer ends

and the crows that circled overhead
still bid me to my Winifred,

from out the city, the boulevard elms:

go north, go north, get off the grid,
go, ford the feeder rivers

although internal, she was animate, provoked,
got so close, in limb, almost proved

sister of my daughter (raven haired
to her wheat)

she was not set in constellation

there is no stone, there is no snow
there is no site for me to go to mourn her

but all of it
the miles and the slanted light
of long weekends,
the great lake, the shouldering falls
coldly thundering
the birch,
hers,  all the fauna,  all the fir,  hers hers,
all the arms,  all the sturdy trunks

 
 
 

Kelly Hansen Maher is a poet and writer living in Northeast Minneapolis. She is the recipient of a 2014 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant and a 2012-13 Loft Literary Center Mentor Series award in poetry. Kelly is working on her first full-length book of poems as well as a book of personal nonfiction. She teaches creative writing in Minnesota correctional facilities with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.