In order to miss you, I have fastened stones to my feet,
walked out into the middle of Lost Lake. It is mossy
here. I think I see Zoe’s denim skirt that blew off the dock
in 2021. Algae, a red ball, what was once netting. What else
should I be? All apologies. At the scrim, the moon, she is wax-
ing. The quiet is sublime, but how long will it take? Dickie
hiding in the clearing in the woods will shoot the ones he
hopes to protect. You have to stand firmly facing the bear
but not move to provoke. Here, nothing is reproduced, no
selection nor election to gulley our attention. And if I swim
a little deeper, a door, and on the other side, light.
About the Poem
This poem was written as a part of a series of poems writing back to/interacting with “the algorithm” as a means of trying to take back my brain from the onslaught of information and advertisement that chases it. The Zoe referred to is Zoe Ryder White, whom I write and read with frequently. We had both lost things off the dock at Lost Lake in upstate New York, (my phone, her skirt) and we had just read The Bee Sting by Paul Murray and had been talking about it a lot. All of these things were swimming around in my head as well as the way the lake can start to feel like a metaphor for the unconscious. I love corresponding with my poet friends because we can go straight to a kind of dream logic, which brings a great sense of companionship.
About the Poet
Caitlin Grace McDonnell was a New York Times Poetry Fellow at NYU where she received her MFA. She has published poems and essays widely, including a chapbook, Dreaming the Tree (2003) and two books of poems, Looking for Small Animals (2012) and Pandemic City (2021) She lives with her daughter and teaches writing in New York City. She is at work on a memoir.
Want to comment? Click!