The Children

"Nostalgic"

Jar of feathers becoming,
finally, another map:
cloistered homage to a decade of geese haunting the grid of our steadfastness.
Un-find the coveted

ibis; kiss the scarlet of the robin's blurred departure.
In the end, we were landmark,
compass, same as the lingered-over pond, the marsh where cattails remained when all else left. Ragged in salt,
cloud-headed.

Paula Bohince's poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and Poetry. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Amy Clampitt Trust, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and an Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship.