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Judith Harway's book, All That Is Left, will be published by Turning Point Books in 2009. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and in The Memory Box, a chapbook (Zarigueya Press, 2002). She has earned fellowships from the Wisconsin Arts Board, the Hambidge Center, and the MacDowell Colony, and is on the faculty of Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
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Free....
(for my grandfather)
as, to court the obvious, a bird
one of the raucous swirl
diving for offal in the steamship's wake
as young men doff their hats and crush
against the rail, stunned by the engines'
lurch towards silence, a dull humming
after nineteen days of roar; or free
as sunlight, pale and hesitant, an aura
petalling the Statue on her island,
bigger than imagining. A free ride
yours, across the North Atlantic
hiding first in folds of darkness
down below then slowly learning
that a man can be so quiet
no one notices the absence of his name
upon the manifest. Free as the bread
of strangers, weevily potatoes; free
as tears, as prayers that praise
but ask nothing.
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