Keeper
And if, despite everything, you
decide to stay in conversation
with this gut-clench of a world, with
all that grates and grovels, all
the shrapnel pocking glass,
if you buttress your own vertebrae
in whalebone, masticate through hard-talk
just to grit your jaw at bombast; if you wedge
whatever weathered voice you have through
existential crevices until it echoes oilskin courage
back to you; if you open up your mollusk
softness, let listening ungrist a bit of sand,
then, friend, know that you will find inside
yourself a lighthouse, a glow across the dark
of new moon water,
a compass, pointing towards the edge
of what’s unseen. Turn your human quaver
toward horizon. Know that now you will be
arrow, be illumination, be a keeper,
pointing someone home.
Alison Hurwitz is a former cellist and dancer who now finds music in language. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2024, and for Best of the Net in 2023 and 2024, Alison is the host of the monthly online reading, Well-Versed Words. Her work is published or forthcoming in South Dakota Review, SWIMM, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART and The Westchester Review. When not writing, Alison officiates weddings and memorial services, walks in the woods, and dances in her kitchen with her family. Find her at alisonhurwitz.com
Amethyst Review 