Poetry
Timothy Pilgrim

Photo Credit: Brian Dearth/Flickr (CC-by)

Fawn

Dawn, twins arrive, behind the fir,
her second year of birth. By noon
a third lies dead near spotted lumps
asleep in leaves under the dogwood tree.
She has a bit of time to feed on tulips,

columbine, laurel, choice weeds.
I sneak out, cover what’s left
of blueberry with net, put out salt,
tub of water, lock the gate.
Four hours pass, my window vigil—

are they alive—YES, first, one,
then the other totters out, begins
to nurse. Garden-pot-tall,
spindly, unsure, they stray,
nose the grass. Ears rise, turn

to each new sound, somehow
they re-find her, reach up, nuzzle,
nurse. Both  wobble away, lie
amid planters warmed by sun—
begin to nap. Mom reclines, rests

in grass, chews, grooms—ears
keeping track of cat on patio,
boys brawling next door, plus
blended sounds of skittering squirrel,
dipping jay, pressure-washer whir.

The pattern repeats three times,
dusk, dark—I fail to sleep.
Day two mirrors one—lurch
through salal, day lilies, taste peas,
return to teat. Rest three hours, nose

young leeks, cross lawn, find mom.
Third morning, she leaps the gate,
I prop it open, hours later see her go,
twins in tow. They lurch along
to gone. I bury the dead fawn.

Beat me up

Sky dances four shades of blue,
evades cloud-frowns blown
like a bad past across it,

turbulent as canyon river foam.
I believe for a time I see him,
still alive, hazel eyes not stormy,

like mine. Lupines bow low,
swoop wild in wind, admonish me,
confess. I recall summer hike here—

trail headed sunward, him left behind—
I moved out, upward, alone,
along the granite ridge. He hid,

shy, never waved goodbye. Sheer edge
still here, no way to turn, I reach
into mist, come up empty.

Maybe in the fall, if I whip myself
sufficiently with this memory,
on the way down, I won’t flail.

Timothy Pilgrim, a Pacific Northwest poet living in Bellingham, Wash., has over 500 hundred acceptances from U.S. journals such as Seattle Review, Red Coyote and Santa Ana River Review, and international journals such as Windsor Review in Canada, Toasted Cheese in the U.S. and Canada, Prole Press in the United Kingdom, and Otoliths in Australia. Pilgrim is the author of Seduced by metaphor (2021) and Mapping water (2016). Email: pilgrimtima[at]gmail.com

Poetry
Timothy Pilgrim

Photo Credit: Bemep/Flickr (CC-by-nc)

Montana Watercolor

I dip my brush, paint a depression
turned from fawn to gray,
beyond the wheat, next farm down.

Re-dip, add old age, barn, weathered,
sagging—rafter rot most likely—
roof caved. Good lives faded

like Big Sky mist, a still-white,
blizzard-frozen, drifted to edge,
off canvas, across road, piled on fence.

My plan—four paintings, montage,
a single homestead gone to ruin.
These two, large, plus hope,

gold sun-streak daubed small
through corral, past manure pile
to muddy stream. Last, the ravine,

willowed, wending, steep. Chickens,
sheep, strayed, the moving van,
blackest black. Children, inked waves

from truck bed, huddled in back.
Memory complete, almost dry,
I rinse my brush, put it away.

Grief

from the loss of her
comes over me in waves,
a tsunami intent on some island

already struggling to stay
above sea level after a convoy
of icebergs melt by. Or like a tidal bore

not holding its breath twice a day,
headed upriver, murky torrent
choking sawgrass, anemic, half dead

from salt left to cake both banks.
Or, perhaps, disbelief any sun will rise,
casually dispense heat sufficient

to dry blood, the grieving heart
pinned like her wet virus mask
on some tattered clothesline—

in wait for a wolf to lope by,
pause at the scent, leap,
rip red, run, feast.

Timothy Pilgrim is a Montana native, Pacific Northwest poet and 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee. He has over five hundred acceptances from journals such as Seattle Review, Santa Anna River Review, Windsor Review, San Pedro River Review, Hobart, Toasted Cheese and The Bond Street Review. He is the author of Mapping Water (2016) and Seduced by Metaphor (2021). Email: pilgrimtima[at]gmail.com

Poetry
Timothy Pilgrim

Photo Credit: Francis Mariani/Flickr (CC-by-nc-nd)

I find it in The New Yorker now
easier to yawn about nothing poems—

self-obsessed men, depression, sanity
on the run, priests preying on nuns.

Phallic prayer naked, life, spread wide
for redemption, full-bosomed end.

So little depends on anything
when limp metaphors droop and bend.

Timothy Pilgrim, a Pacific Northwest poet and Pushcart Prize nominee in 2018, has several hundred acceptances from journals like Seattle Review, Third Wednesday, Windsor Review, Mad Swirl, Sleet, San Pedro River Review, Santa Anna River Review, Toasted Cheese and Hobart. He is author of Mapping Water (Flying Trout Press, 2016). Email: pilgrimtima[at]gmail.com

Poetry
Timothy Pilgrim

Photo Credit: Neha Viswanathan (CC-by-nc)

Armpit hair with darkened curl
announces a soulful,

acoustic woman. Organic.
Escapee from brotherhood

of jockstrap. I sense hope
within black growth, believe

she might, indeed, be free—
doesn’t love beauty contests,

riding horses, can make
a decent quiche—will teach me

how to knit, read Munro aloud,
show me how a real man howls.

Timothy Pilgrim, a Pacific Northwest poet and emeritus associate professor of journalism at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., has published over 300 poems—with acceptances from journals like Seattle Review, San Pedro River Review, Third Wednesday, Prole Press, Cirque and Toasted Cheese. He is author of Mapping Water (Flying Trout Press, 2016). His work can be found at timothypilgrim.org. Email: pilgrimtima[at]gmail.com