Patricia Nelson

Someone New to the World 

Do these caverns of sound and hope 
go on forever? 

This blood that edges through me, 
bending back on itself? 

The sensations on the wide of my hand 
changing like the colors in a ruby? 

This little hound with his nose in the wind 
walking on my shadow? 

I hear our pale breaths, and far away  
the sea that pulls its whiteness back and forth.  

Each wave touches the sand  
with its bright, dissolving weight,  

the distance it has traveled, 
the unstoppable moment.  

Patricia Nelson is a retired attorney who works with the "Activist" group of poets in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has published widely in small literary journals. Her new book, Monster Monologues, is due out from Fernwood Press in December.