Jane toasts the river
eddying round her teeth
tongue floating in a billabong
gathering in each cheek

A waterfall

cascades
down her throat

she’s swallowing cloudbursts
that played percussion

last night on the roof
as she raises
a glass to her lips—

that simple act
of remembering
the origin of water

She returns the glass to the sink

and pauses
long enough to think;

if my body is mainly water
which ocean am I?

Kathy Kituai

 

Kathy Kituai is a diarist, poet, tanka editor for Cattails, creative writing facilitator and founder of the Limestone Tanka Poets (2010). She has published eight collections of poetry and her poetry has appeared in USA, Canada, UK, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. Her latest tanka book was the winner of 2016 ACT Publishing and Writing Award and she gained second place in the International Sanford Goldstein Tanka Award in 2018.

© 2019