In Great Village
Rent from DeepDyve- In Great Village
for Elizabeth Bishop
IDid the hue of your walls—turquoise, edging toward violetin some lights—tune your mindto color? Taller than wide,top of the stairs, your own spacein grandmother's housefilled with aunts, an uncle,the baby who died that first winter.
Voices at night, steps up, down,boots knocking off snowon the scraper by the door.When she was all right,your mother read youtales of Andersen, showed youdresses she admired in magazines.Her perfume stayed on your pillow,her black and white striped skirtwhispered as she went out.
IIAt sunset, you'll take the dirt roadtoward the bay. Near the crest,a fox will come out of the grassand look at you, orange-brown against [End Page 160] the red clay. You will keep walkinguntil you can see his whiskers,narrow gaze.
When he vanishes, you'll tiptoe,shoes scuffling on pebbles.Pastures will fall away. The tidewill rush over its red bed, a tongueblue of sky, gold of cloud. You'll lookuntil you disappear in the colors.
Once, the fox will scream,send you running home,crying so you can't saywhat scared you. You've heard the soundbefore, in your grandmother's house. [End Page 161]
Susan Okie is a poet, a doctor, and a journalist. Her poems have appeared in the Gettysburg Review, the Bellevue Literary Review, Journal of the American Medical Association, Cider Press Review, Gargoyle, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and others. She is a graduate of the Warren Wilson College mfa Program for Writers. Her poetry chapbook was a finalist in the 2017 New Women's Voices contest held by Finishing Line Press and is forthcoming. She is also the author of two nonfiction books. A former medical reporter and science editor for the Washington Post, she is an assistant clinical professor of family medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine and a volunteer physician with Mobile Medical Care, treating low-income adults in Montgomery County, MD.
