"Longships Lighthouse, Land’s End" by Joseph Mallord William Turner

Two women walk in the rain

their backs receding.

The thing is there’s no knowing

who might rise, fall. One of them

once said, it’s like when wind

out of nowhere—suddenly blows

backwards. The other, or when light comes up

through ice rather than falling

down and in. Yes. When a body plunges

sometimes it’s not the same old cold

it’s different. Violent. To be clear

—there’s plutonium

and there’s helium. There’s a hand

then nothing.

Lindsay Rockwell

Lindsay Rockwell's work explores the shared landscape of poetry and the sacred. She's recently published, or forthcoming in Guernica, Plume, Poetry Northwest, Poet Lore, Tupelo Quarterly, SWWIM every day, among others. Her collection, Ghost Fires, was published by Main Street Rag, April 2023. She is the recipient of the Andrew Glase Poetry Prize and fellowships from Vermont Studio Center and Edith Wharton/The Mount residency.