Poetry by Nora Pace

                        Marketa CC



Covers

I would like to be covered in lilacs
no inch of me bare of blooms, 

or draped in starlight so bright
it shines through the web of my fingers and toes. 

and I would toss my hair further
if I could make it a river
to nourish farms and sate forest fires.
I’d wrap it around you
douse you in love
salve your drought
rescue your crops.
and when I’d finished throwing it about,
I’d lay myself down with a hill for a pillow and stay very still
and hope that deer would come to drink
and that they’d be startled by a turtle or two
popping their heads up happily
from where they have been
snuggling under the covers of the river I made. ​




​
I realize you’ve never told me if your brother is still alive 

it was a hazy night
but your eyes favor twilight 

you rolled down your window,
let those old tires crunch and come to a stop
on slow gravel.
you took my hand
and pointed with the other
to a buck, high on the ridge. 

I could have sworn I heard you speak
then again maybe you spoke the silence
same as you held that deer’s eyes
tethered to us for long wideness 

the sky color deepened
my heart changed patterns
to beat in threes
and you did not drive again
until he kicked up his hooves
into the stars that had fallen
to magnetize him into flight. 

​



note to a lonely man


you are the rafters of an old barn and that owl perching there is hope, or your soul, and it might
sound hollow when that grumpy little jester hoots, but it won’t go unheard in the barn itself. It
doesn’t matter how few people open those doors, because your purpose is not people: it’s owls.
And like once your stalls had horses and a cow called Moonlight, maybe they’ll be filled again or
maybe you’ll use the space to build a boat. 

Anyway I’ll be here when you need me; I’m just chasing snakes right now but I can be a
weathervane or a trough or I guess I can be a woman.

​
​

Nora Pace writes poetry, essays, and fiction. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Maynard, Peculiar Journal, Juniper, Kansas City Voices, Barren Magazine, and Riggwelter Press. She recently attended the Kettle Pond Writers’ Conference and was a finalist for The Public’s Radio Poetry Competition. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she teaches English.

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