Faith
By Liz Ahl
almost rhymes with earth, the solid dirt we stand on which is neither one single thing nor solid, but rather amalgam and alchemy, boulders and grains, plates adrift on magma seas, sinking, rising, quaking, tested by forces seen and unseen. Like those pocket aces you slow-play among felt-table strangers, it can feel like a lock as much as a lark, even as some small voice mutters fold, remembering well the particular sting of that kind of loss, the dwindling chip-stack. Was it faith rewarded when the hydrangea we’d rudely pruned, having refused to bloom for years, finally popped back, a dusty violet trio returned to prodigal parents? Was it faith or some other ache in us the whole long time we silently agreed never to mention that empty space?
Liz Ahl’s most recent collection is the chapbook, A Stanza is a Place to Stand, which won the 2023 A.V. Christie prize from Seven Kitchens Press. Her most recent full-length collection, A Case for Solace (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022), won the 2023 New Hampshire Literary Award for Poetry. She lives in Holderness, New Hampshire.
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01/08 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Rita Mookerjee & local poet Madison Miller / The BBar at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free
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