by Marjorie Saiser

It’s a small breath the bird uses
for its song, intake of air
so light the earth hardly
misses it. Molecules into the beak,
out again, air changed to melody.
I wait for word that he is safe, this heart
of my heart who would not stay home
but sailed, as love is always sailing,
out onto the dark sea.
And if he is safe, laughing somewhere
over beer with his friends,
that will be song enough.
And if he is not safe,
no amount of sweet notes
will matter to me.

Marjorie Saiser's set of poems, Confluence Itself, won Fourth River's 2017 Folio Prize. Saiser's work has been published in Poetry East, Poet Lore, Nimrod, Chattahoochee Review, and other journals.