ISSUE 34
February 2007

Liz Dolan

 

Liz Dolan, a 2005 Pushcart nominee in poetry and a 2006 nominee in fiction, has published poems, memoir and short stories in New Delta Review, Rattle, Illuminations and Mudlark. A recipient of a fellowship in poetry from the Delaware Division Of Arts, she was also a finalist in the Dogfish Head Chapbook contest in 2006 and her poems published in Mudlark were chosen Best of the Web by Web Del Sol.

The Healing   


Like the Orkney Islanders, my daughter dreams seals are human.
In a rush-bottomed boat her infant--born dead--

floats over weeks through years in and out of seas
lolling on waves, uillean pipes pealing.

A brown-eyed seal suckles her with breast milk
so rich it raises inches of fat on her;

black moons peer from a cave until the tide
recedes. On every midsummer's eve

every ninth night every seventh stream
the infant clears the water and slips her skin

down to the sand like an old coat. She skips
and twirls on lonely stretches of pearl-lit shore.

To the sea's slow lapping, the mother
gentles her sloe-eyed child to sleep.

Shape-shifter, half-seal half-human,
rests in white sun on an outlying reef.

 

 

Liz Dolan: Poetry
Copyright ©2007 The Cortland Review Issue 34The Cortland Review