Turn
I don’t know
what to tell you.
In the beginning, I took
everything
for granted: the shore primed
for that kind of sunset.
If there were clouds,
the next day there wouldn’t
be. I didn’t know
then, that water
is for drifting. Each year
we move a little further
away. Still, it’s the lake
I seek, it’s the laugh
in your throat,
it’s gone each time
I turn to it.
Score for Dunes
I think outward:
you,
what it was.
I tried to
stop myself from needing to
In the photo
toward the trees,
the dune we climbed,
down.
at its base.
I burn
I never wrote
I keep
who we were then.
In the later years,
barely touching it.
our distance:
against the sun-warmed
stretch of sand.
I want to know
in missing through my own
removal, trajectory.
worth climbing the dune
for, along the ridge
a way to reach
the lake no longer
Even if
I couldn’t
be near it.
we all look back
at the edge
posed
before we run
The lake just visible
I wish
everything from
the water
was cold, our skin
We kept
the lap of the waves
if you miss it
or if I’m alone
Maybe I miss the view
its trees
To Think about the Mileage
How we sing, examine
the enclosure.
How the constraint
nevertheless gave.
I think of where
I am and who I was,
think of the water.
How do you see me now, older?
How do I see you, moving,
further. I think of the drift
and want to remap, to make
a kind of claim. What over?
Instead, I resist. I float.
I dreamed a way through
and then found it. Once,
you said I would never
return, disappear. Even then
I knew I could not—not not
return, not disappear. Instead,
I hold onto and out
the hand that extends,
the water. It isn’t what it was
and therefore
I cannot covet, I cannot
hide. No boundary
is ever fixed—even now
the lake erodes. My mind
shifts with it, doesn’t
move it or remember.
Its depths, its shore
just one wide expanse.
Where does it go, what
did it do—I linger
even after you’ve gone.
I think of us now, our
bodies in motion, ever
outward. What do we
bring with us, what do
we hold to. What do we
sing about it now. What is there
to examine.
Emily Barton Altman is the author of two chapbooks, "Bathymetry" (Present Tense Pamphlets, 2016), and "Alice Hangs Her Map" (dancing girl press, 2019). Recent poems are forthcoming or appear in Second Factory, Bone Bouquet, Tagvverk, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of a Poets & Writers Amy Award and received her MFA from New York University. She is currently a PhD Candidate in English and Creative Writing at the University of Denver.