Kimberly Kralowec

[One childhood day—the sky indelible]

One childhood day—the sky indelible 
and far too blue—the house tensed,
and broke its own glass. Shards fell.
I heard water dry on the sidewalk.
I stayed out till yellow oxalis grew 
into doorways, grew into walls. 
The sun dimmed so brightly,
and somewhere, a signal tide.  
Years later, on a similar blue day, 
nothing has changed about the light—
but the land is now miles of beaches
and my largest want is this: to return 
with you to the shattered house
and touch you with young hands.

Kimberly Kralowec is the author of a chapbook, We Retreat into the Stillness of Our Own Bones (Tolsun Books, forthcoming May 2022). A lawyer by profession, she holds a J.D. from the University of California, Davis, School of Law, and an English degree from Pomona College in Claremont, California. Her awards include the Patrick J. Hopkins Memorial Writing Award and the F.S. Jennings Prize in Expository Writing. Originally from a small town in the San Joaquin Valley, she now lives in San Francisco and has been named one of the Top 100 Women Lawyers in California. Her poems have appeared in journals such as The Night Heron Barks, High Shelf, Star 82 Review, Birdland, and West Trestle Review.

Learn more about Kim at her poetry blog, http://www.anapoetics.com, and her law blog, http://www.uclpractitioner.com.