Gregory Luce, two poems

And She Moves

(On some lines from Nick Cave / for Naomi)

And she moves among the sparrows

and seed falls from her hand

like droplets from the fingers

of Aphrodite in a fountain

And she moves among the shadows

and light trickles from her fingertips

like grains of wheat scattering in the wind

And she moves something deep inside of me

and birds skitter from the shadows

sprinkling dust and sunlight

and I am stilled, trembling.

Another Flight

Moving imperceptibly through

the world above the clouds,

which is no world at all

but pure ether, time

between cities attenuated

to fine fiber along which

we glide. Cut from

our tether to earth

we seem to float,

superior briefly even

to birds, until gravity

reasserts its rule

the plane sinks as

the heart rises in

the chest and we

bump along the earth

once more.

Gregory Luce, author of Signs of Small Grace (Pudding House Publications), Drinking Weather (Finishing Line Press), Memory and Desire (Sweatshoppe Publications), and Tile (Finishing Line Press), has published widely in print and online. He is the 2014 Larry Neal Award winner for adult poetry, given by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He is retired from National Geographic, works as a creative writing instructor for Writopia Lab, and lives in Arlington, VA.