Shannon Cuthbert

Shannon Cuthbert is a writer and artist living in Brooklyn. Her poems have been nominated for three Pushcarts, and have appeared in Plum Tree Tavern, Bangor Literary Review, and The Oddville Press, among others. Her work is forthcoming in The Metaworker, Big Windows Review, and EcoTheo Review, among others.

Wanderer

Walking a strange city, outside yourself,
A small bird is circling overhead.
Here the lamps curl in like fists of plants,
The streets grated silver.
Windows capture your reflection and hold it
Just a moment before they sigh it back.
You have come here with nothing
But a heart hoping to spill from the shallow edge.
This city that has risen from a gray swollen sea
Will one day return.
It promises rows of faces
Open-and-closing themselves like palms.
Some to hold you, house you,
Clothe you in their wares.
Some to look despair between the eyes
And turn you a shadow
In the bright bird of youth.