The Children

"Nostalgic"

Jar of feathers becoming,
finally, another map:
cloistered homage to a decade of geese
haunting the grid of our
steadfastness.
Un-find the coveted

ibis; kiss the scarlet of the robin's
blurred departure.
In the end, we were landmark,
compass, same as the lingered-over
pond, the marsh
where cattails remained when all else
left. Ragged in salt,
cloud-headed.

Paula Bohince's poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and Poetry. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Amy Clampitt Trust, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and an Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship.