Ellen Austin-Li
Ellen Austin-Li’s first full-length collection, Incidental Pollen—a 2023 Trio Award finalist, 2024 Wisconsin Poetry Series semi-finalist, and runner-up to the 2023 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize—is forthcoming from Madville Publishing. Finishing Line Press published her two chapbooks, Firefly (2019) and Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic (2021). Her work appears in Artemis, Thimble Literary, The Maine Review, Salamander, Lily Poetry Review, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. She’s a Best of the Net nominee and holds an MFA in poetry from the Solstice Low-Residency Program. Ellen co-founded the monthly reading series, Poetry Night at Sitwell’s, in Cincinnati, where she lives.
Losing Our Fathers
It was the time mother pointed
him on the kitchen floor
to the dates on a calendar
unable to move his left leg & arm
to untangle the thread
his strong form a frozen river
of time in his mind the days
we skate then tumble in the water
draining from the sink more
drowning then a rescue attempt
quickly as if once stopped
the body miraculous surges but
the plug pulled the full
moon wanes the light dims
brain erases the time before
an empty bowl of silence
when he checked the locks
a ritual we sat through
at each door over and over
watching the key turn the push
so no one could get in
to unlock to recover
to steal more than had been
all that had been
already taken.
