ley lines
our host swaggers toward us at the bus stop in kenmare / introduces himself
as r. / smiles through boyish eyes tinged with hard shadow of habit
we sit down as strangers in his kitchen among a penitent crowd of potted plants
r. tells us stories / pours whiskey / watches dark droplets dry
on our lips / takes us to a stone circle / kicks over the rickety donation box
declares monetization the worst of human crimes / orders
more whiskey for us at a bar a water for himself / leans toward me
asks why don’t i come back to kerry alone next time
departure day / return from a walk / find our dirty clothes folded clean
atop the guest room bed small pile of my underwear creased
to careful triangles / say thanks for the kindness / arrive years after this moment
r. sends a message / had a dream about me do i want to know
what kind / remember the stone bridge covered in moss crooked castle wanting
its roof nothing so far off from decay / remember some forces
can be mapped / draw each line with precision the invisible circle expands
from a ring of rocks at its center / erected at first as a kind of prayer
Lindsay D’Andrea is an emerging writer working on her first collection of poems. Recently, her poems have been selected for publication in On the Seawall, The Baltimore Review, Ploughshares, and the North American Review, among others. She currently lives in the Philadelphia area with her family.
