Kathleen Flenniken will give a free reading at the Orcas Public Library on Friday, April 23 in celebration of National Poetry Month. Flenniken, a poet, teacher and editor, will read at 7 p.m.
Horse Latitudes
by Kathleen Flenniken
A raft of debris as large as Africa
accumulates in the Pacific gyre—
trash, plastic, rope, netting—a synthetic sea
of flotsam that will outlive us all.
Few ships enter. A windless ocean
strikes terror in the crew.
If you can’t imagine
the camera pulling back, pulling back
until we see the curve of the earth,
pulling back to reveal the atmosphere’s
blue glow and still not bounding
the garbage—if we can’t acknowledge
the damage done—then recall your secret hurt
that churns and churns and won’t
diminish—a spiral so huge,
your mind mutinies and denies it all.
Third Coast, Spring 2010
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