Katrina Kaye
I am no longer
a hatchling in need
of the soft
wing of your embrace.
I grew under
gaze and care
and now
stand on feet,
balanced,
strong.
This sky is vast,
it will dance for me.
You don’t need to
cradle me in the basket
of your arms.
I am bird
with wings expanded,
breath in lungs.
Let me fly.
“Fly” is previously published in To Anyone Who has Ever Loved a Writer (2014).
Katrina Kaye
My façade is masonry.
Mineral matter
solidified
over supple flesh
of chin and chest.
I have built myself
into marble statue
perpetual in posture.
When you hit gravel,
I was the stepping stone
that supported your climb.
When you couldn’t swim any longer
I was an island to lie upon.
You said I was your rock:
stone held firmly in place,
lacking malleability,
solid under weight bending back.
You said you needed me
to hold you up,
keep free of fierce waters,
and blackened ravines.
You said I am
your stable support,
but my material,
though durable,
lacks permanence.
The smallest stream
cuts through
the hardest of granite
after years of rain.
Mountains weather to remnants,
boulders become sand,
and pebbles playing on the beach
move easily in the
pull and tug of changing tide.
I have not remained picturesque
from years of exposure to your elements.
My exterior is worn, eroded,
and when I crack
there will be no gems to harvest,
just hollow.
The firmer your hold on my splintering surface
the more you will strip me to sediments,
until there
is nothing left
of me
for you.
“Erosion” is previously published in They Don’t Make Memories Like That Anymore (2011).
Katrina Kaye
When is the last time
you held sand,
felt the fall
of each granule,
and wished for nothing
more than the warmth
your allowed to slip from hands?
I am lingering deep
in a list of what
could have been and
relishing the simple
I have attained.
I call them albas,
morning songs,
gibberish.
They are nothing to anyone,
but the melody
reminds me of a memory.
Yes, time has passed me;
forgotten my name
and kept
rolling through
like the weather,
like the waves,
like the pull of the moon.
These things aren’t forever
despite how far they stretch.
After all,
there is no such thing as forever.
Merely here and merely now.
Even our breath is compulsory.
Do we continue the ritual and fail,
or do we learn and do we go on?
Where does the fall take us,
if not to the next season?
“Impulse” is previously published in Saturday’s Sirens (2020).
Chasing Rabbits 
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