Grace Marie Grafton
Diving down
A person needs to come from
a given locale, even if she was born
on a ship in the middle of the Pacific.
Undeniably not a good place to be born
but, to identify with waves and what's
underneath. To understand whale tones,
to feel in her own limbs the muscles a dolphin
uses to leap free of Mother Water. A craving
for salt, an understanding of migrating birds,
flying as they track the cosmic signals.
An unclassic education where stars, in their
patterns, possess a language of their own.
The mother lies down on the deck at mid-
night, her babe tucked against her breast.
She croons star syllables into her infant's ear.
Bio
Grace Marie Grafton is the author of six books of poems, most recently 'Jester' from Hip Pocket Press. Recent poems appear in Peacock Journal, Homestead Review, Sisyphus Literary Magazine and Sin Fronteras, among others. She has taught thousands of children to write poetry through her work with CA Poets in the Schools.