clearwater

Sarah Toomey

it is fifty-fifty that she

ever gets it back. in

the gold room, the plaques

were all late for us, leafy

once, now fifty-plus

years overdue. had we

vaulted ourselves from the room, it

might have thinned, anxious

at the prospect of turn, of

crawl, of smoothing

that inability to burn. she

pulls her tendons tight for

the grass in these ways,

knowing only glare and, twice,

reflection. legs are

sectioned, heaving under wrap. shoulders

flake away in passing and

   are gutted in the lap.