Carey Taylor

Where God Resides

Today I hike Neahkahnie Mountain,
sense spirit of elk in the grasslands.

At the top of the headland I release us—ask the South Wind
to carry our burdens, beyond lingcod and dogfish.

I stopped scanning the bar for your boat years ago,
but on the dock I still pull crab pots

filled with your voice, sometimes your face,
once the Pepé Le Pew tattoo on your calf

you tried to keep hidden from me.
I was so sure of who left who, but this old

coastal fog has blurred things, left me alone
with our bowed legs and broad shoulders,

a book about a horse you gave me at fifteen,
chaps from that doe you hauled off this mountain.

What else could I have done
but return to this western edge we were our best in?

To the dark of Sitka spruce, where in the smallest shaft of light,
we were sword fern unfurling toward the blue-gray light.

Carey Taylor is the author of The Lure of Impermanence (Cirque Press 2018). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the 2022 Neahkahnie Mountain Poetry Prize. Her work has been published both nationally and internationally. She holds a Master of Arts degree in School Counseling and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. https://careyleetaylor.com