How to Measure Sea Level Rise                                                                    —Todd Davis


In the crowns of the last white pines, children climb
broad limbs, an escape ladder with a clean view to the horizon.
Like the calving of glaciers, you can hear from a long way off

where the land closest to the water folds and buckles.
Because this brackish estuary poisons roots, we collect rainwater
from leaves and after storms cast nets, hoping for the rare mackerel,

an eel or squid to swim into the knots of our vacant stomachs. 
A different warmth engulfs this raft of branches, and winds 
from the south rock the dying trees. Some of us are lulled to sleep, 

bodies slipping from their perches to plunge toward earth. The drowned 
catch on skeletons of coral reefs and wave like bloated flags
in surrender. The moon rides the wrack line, then disappears.

We huddle together in the dark, water lapping at ankles,
wondering into what harbor we might sail, where any of us
might safely drop anchor.


Bodies in May


I ate for two moons 
since rising with 
the rising rivers 
in the greening 
days when trees 
flower and grubs 
wriggle beneath 
rotting logs when 
the earth warmed 
and I slept without 
hunger and found 
more than enough 
to eat in my walking
that is why
I was surprised 
by the painful 
emptiness I felt
after she gave 
herself and I 
entered the door 
of her body 
and left something 
of myself 
to grow apart 
from me.

Todd Davis

Todd Davis is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently Native Species (2019) and Winterkill (2016), both published by Michigan State University Press. His writing has won the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Bronze and Silver Awards, the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, and the Chautauqua Editors Prize. New poems are forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Missouri Review, and Poetry East. He teaches environmental studies at Pennsylvania State University’s Altoona College.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2019