Seattle

Curved and tall and dark
Glinting wet rain and unending darkness
Night that came in afternoon and sun that outlasted the night.
I was full of a fear I’d realize after the fact.
Me, 22 and scared like happiness finally breaking out of Georgia prison,
meeting drag queens in the hallway.
This city took me in hard and silent, me a duckling without a mother.
This city that was glossy and black at night with neon, like blown glass,
a salty delicate sea creature, vaginal and open,
blown by rough men with callused hands.
This city with grit filled longing and cobblestones and salmon.
Driving around the shiny wet night alone, so alone,
this is the city that made me,
in the dark,
in the sideways shadows of fall,
in the cherry blossom snowstorm of spring,
in stained fingers and in black boxes,
in journals, old paper, and weeping.
There I gave birth and grew into myself even though
I didn’t know it until now.

(photo credit Still Vision)

Originally published at https://www.juliegillispoetry.com on June 25, 2011.