North Carolina Poetry Society   —   Zoe Kincaid Brockman Book Award



Circe's Song

High on a crag with her wild hair flying
Circe sits in a cage of bone
and sings to the seawrack, sighing, sighing
for a lover gone.

"Black is the wind and the moon is dying"
Circe sings in a monotone.
"Alas! Alas!" shriek the seabirds, eyeing
the silver foam.

"Woe is the woman whose love is lying
warm in the web that is not her own.
Woe is the woman plying, plying
shuttles through stone."


Terra Amata, St. Andrews Press, 1979, copyright
© by Kathryn Bright Gurkin. Used with the poet's permission.




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