Alison Hicks

Season of Phantasmal Peace
After Derek Walcott
 
I caused offense.
I saw her frown and walk out.
Then the message without explanation.
The body registers assault:
a migraine leaks behind my eye,
my right thumb joint aches.
It is not reasonable in this world
to expect to live a blameless life.
 
In the absence of a blameless life,   
we cast our nets.
In the peaceable kingdom
yet to arrive,
we will haul ropes out of the water
into our laps, work fingers into knots
we have fashioned,
slip through to open sea.

Alison Hicks was awarded the 2021 Birdy Prize from Meadowlark Press for Knowing Is a Branching Trail. Previous collections are You Who Took the Boat Out and Kiss, a chapbook Falling Dreams, and a novella Love: A Story of Images. Her work has appeared in Eclipse, Gargoyle, Permafrost, and Poet Lore. She was finalist for the 2021 Beullah Rose prize from Smartish Pace, an Editor’s Choice selection for the 2024 Philadelphia Stories National Poetry Prize, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Green Hills Literary Lantern, Quartet Journal, and Nude Bruce Review. She is founder of Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio, which offers community-based writing workshops.