juliana gray / poem

On the Island

Palm trees clatter in the wind, trying 

to tell me something. Your mother is dead, they rasp. 

Yeah, I know, for a year. Out in the marsh, 

feral pigs who used to be sailors forage 

for crawfish. They’ve forgotten their human wives

and taken up with broody sows. The meat

of their tender piglets tastes of saltgrass.

Your father is dead, say the dried fronds,

banging for attention. For fuck’s sake, 

that’s been over a decade, try to keep up.

Snowy egrets pose for formal portraits.

They’re too beautiful; I have to steal

glances from the corner of my eye. 

Easier the black vultures circling 

overhead, the undersides of their wings

white as if forecasting bone. You

will die, say the palms. Honestly, 

what a boring conversation. Let

me know if something new ever happens,

or if you spot the plume of a distant sail. 

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Juliana Gray's third poetry collection is Honeymoon Palsy (Measure Press 2017). Recent poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Willow Springs, and elsewhere. An Alabama native, Juliana lives in western New York and teaches at Alfred University.