Outskirts
by Jade Riordan
Still the lake fills with rain
and the surrounding rock, soil, sand
absorb the grey clouds/silver linings.
Still the fading summer months fly
south with the birds; daylight hours
guided by their leaving.
I’ve left four memories under
a cairn at the outskirts of town;
a place where my vision turned inward
once again. There, maybe even now:
a spare toque, a library card, the ashes
of a diary, and a matchbox
filled with stamps. And out past
the airport, a highway that follows
the path of the birds’ leaving.
And that of their eventual return
Jade Riordan is an Irish-Canadian poet, an undergraduate student, and a selection committee member (poetry reader) with Bywords. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Blue Nib, Cha, Cordite Poetry Review, The Miracle Monocle, Spittoon, takahē, Vallum, and elsewhere.
Foreign 