Our Way in the Woods
by Kate Bonnici
No words were ever fine or charitable
No material matter enough to hold the stone dead
Like blood a promise fans wider than brightness
& reaches where brothers are boys a father carries
Once a woman dove from the rocks wearing birds
We wait—we who are such minor folded things—
We wait lovesick for word she did not land
Kate Bonnici’s poetry collection, Night Burial, won the 2020 Colorado Prize for Poetry, and her second book, A True & Just Record, was published by Boiler House Press/Beyond Criticism editions in 2023. A third collection is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press (University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point). Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Maine Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Arts & Letters, Southern Humanities Review, Image, Foundry, CounterText, Exemplaria and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Pepperdine University, where she directs the Social Action and Justice Colloquium.
