Sarah Carey

In The Hollow

in a cabin deep in Carolina wood,
I learn to breathe, to listen, pulsing

toward release, to see outside
the window of my body

within a body. We imprint rhythms
of our parents’ speech, or so they say:

What we knew before we knew confinement,
what social distance meant.

My parents’ voices ping like pennies
at the bottom of a well.

I believe we were content.

The last pandemic anyone remembered
predated us by generations

which follow. I fall a little deeper
into the echo chamber

of my mother’s heartbeat.
Outside, nuthatch boxes hang as hope

a threatened southern bird
will call them home.

Sarah Carey (Twitter: @SayCarey1) is a graduate of the Florida State University creative writing program. Her work has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Five Points, Atlanta Review, Grist, Yemassee, UCity Review, Frontier Poetry and elsewhere. Her poetry book reviews have appeared recently in EcoTheo Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal and the Los Angeles Review.
Sarah’s poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Orison Anthology. Her poetry chapbook, Accommodations (2019) received the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Award. She also is the author of another chapbook, The Heart Contracts (Finishing Line Press, 2016.) She lives and works in Gainesville, Florida, where it’s always a good time for ice cream.