by Bri Bruce
I had not expected, mid-life,
that already my shining years
would be behind me, traded
for more essential things:
what it means
to have patience,
to wage a war,
how to endure.
I remember clearer now:
the smooth dunes,
bare shoulders,
my body feeling somehow
less bound, belonging
to me. You came out
of the sea—salt on skin.
In a particular way,
your face opened
beneath the midday sky.
Those early days I miss
when the light in your eye
hadn’t dimmed—before
you closed to me, some magic
you never spoke of
dissipating.
Yet we are here, still,
silvering at our temples and
saturated with all
we’ve lived, dark star
on my horizon.
Award-winning author and Pushcart Prize nominee, California poet Bri Bruce has been deemed the “heiress of Mary Oliver.” With a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz, her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including The Sun Magazine, Northwind Magazine, The Soundings Review, and The Monterey Poetry Review, among others.
Emerge Literary Journal 