Molly Fisk: Peace

One of those days when the grain of a wooden table

seems more certain, as if ordained, when gravity feels

like praise: the unexpected May rain falling straight

but gently, not breaking poppy petals from their tall

stems, not endangering hummingbird eggs in their nest

among the camellias. A day when the human world

recedes, taking its murders and meanness, its righteous

disdain out of sight, the way the last glimpse of an island

will disappear beyond the earth’s implacable curve,

so all around your boat is only ocean, swirling

and lapping, folding blue into gray into green.

Vox Populi