Rain falls in tireless ribbons
drifting down from a silver sky
like wet tinsel on a sodden tree.
The cold hides inside my clothing
clings to my skin in thin, icy layers
draws its fingers at last into my bones.
And yet I cannot stop looking
cannot help but raise my face to the mist
for a last kiss before going indoors.
There I will throw more wood on the fire
and huddle close enough to combust.

The cold does not easily let go; it beckons me to walk farther from home down to the shoreline where grey gulls roll…

Surely we weren’t meant
to walk alone.
These days I force myself outdoors
without picking up a leash
without pocketfuls of treats
or a ball in hand.
I scarcely know how to move
my hands fall at my sides
foolish empty things.

For years you marked my steps
out ahead, close behind
ranging across my path
your presence alongside me
warning away any harm:
I was yours
and you were mine
our tracks intertwined like tangled yarn
or nerves in a single system.

Now my footsteps hesitate over forest floor where sunlight falls but does not reach my path. We…

I step out into dusk after a difficult day
spent wrestling demons indoors.
Wind shushes in the treetops
and something heavy lifts off my shoulders.
Tall spirits walk beside me in the dark
I can’t explain how I know this
but if you were here you would feel them too.

Depending on how you see things
the road is either a strip of mud
or a silver ribbon in muted moonlight
and poetry streams behind me in the wind
that only the spirits can read. I will try
to capture it later and wrestle it
onto paper
much like a demon, or clouds passing
over a three-quarter moon.

Kara B. Imle is a poet, memoirist, and healer. She lives in the liminal space between land and sea, on a small island in the Pacific Northwest. She likes hiking, kayaking, and geeking out on words.

Some days being alive
is harder than others.
Today a cloudbank sat on my chest
weighed me down
pulled me under.
Restless, I tried for breath
came up with only bubbles:
not enough for my blood
that grows richer by the day.

Time wears onward
the shadow follows wherever I go
crouched at my bedside
standing behind me in the kitchen.
Sometimes panic swells
my ribs, pushes
everything away from everything else:
the world grows large and indifferent
and I cannot find myself in it.

Try to see beauty in pain try to hold down the rumpled, rippling fabric of…

We go out into the cold
and black of a new-moon night
climbing down slick boulders
to feel our way toward the sea,
three women seeking treasure.
We are blind except for the lamps
arrowing through curtains of fog
we make with our breath.
We follow instinct toward the water’s edge
which has receded so far
we cannot reach it.
The smell of her, though: brine
and blood, seaweed and salt
tells us Ocean is near. She
mirrors our own scent and soul
and we cannot steal from her
without stealing from ourselves.

We set our buckets down and begin…

My body is a beehive
humming from root to crown
filled with the nectar of desire
its borders laced in sacred geometry.

The queen hides her golden wings
in clefts no lover can fathom
unless, in seeking her ambrosia
they risk her sting.

What will you do with your pain?
Run from it
and from the honey you long for
in the sweetness of Now?
Will you deny the vibrations humming
from the base of your spine
spiraling up serpentlike
to the dome of your skull?

Enter the hollow tree and see where that tunnel goes. It promises to hurt…

I recently witnessed a creature I thought had gone extinct: a dinner party my mother hosted, where Democrats and Republicans got into the same room and nobody started a fight. My parents are old-school. As far as they’re concerned, there’s no reason not to stay friends with the people they’ve been hanging out with since the Carter administration.

There were ten people present. Three of them had voted for Trump and seven felt the country was crumbling irreparably as a result of Trump’s presidency. But the subject, when it came up, didn’t split the dinner party into a brawl over…

Driving down the highway
weeping so hard the windshield fogs up
steering with my knee while I blow my nose
is just a thing I do now.

Words fly from me these days
and tears come in their place.
When I cry, the sky rains
and wind bows the treetops.
It’s not a pretty cry, this grief
welling up from the lungs
in hoarse howls and jagged questions
no one can hear.

Everything: the clouds the sky behind them the smell of creosote the wet road humming steadily beneath the tires answers with the same words: just keep going. Never…