Wayne Lee

The Telling

Tell us again how the sky stays fastened to the Earth,
why it doesn’t fly off into the belly of the sun.

Did the islands rise from the depths to leave behind
the fish-eyed sea? Did a raven trick its darkness

from the night? And what of the witch who conjured
up the constellations, the clamshell mother of us all,

the shape-shifting moon? Chant again the adventures
of the wind as it steals the leaves from the trees,

the corn people who climbed through a hole
in the ground, the ghost that sang in a circle of stones.

My ears have turned to clay. Play again that lay of golden
fruit. Pluck your magic ribcage strung with silver hair.

Writer, editor and teacher Wayne Lee (wayneleepoet.com) lives in Santa Fe, NM. Lee’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Press, Slipstream, The New Guard, The Lowestoft Chronicle, Writer’s Digest and other journals and anthologies. He was awarded the 2012 Fischer Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and three Best of the Net Awards. His collection The Underside of Light was a finalist for the 2014 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award. His chapbook Buddha’s Cat was published by Whistle Lake Press in May 2024. His memoir Service Husband: A Caregiver’s Journey Through Disability, Suicide and Recovery is forthcoming from Mercury Heartlink in January 2025, and his collection Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in April 2025. Lee is the founder and host of the online Tuesday Poetry Practice community.