Salisbury’s poetry has been published in Calyx, Michigan Quarterly Review, and other journals. The chapbooks, Come What May and Scarlet Rain Boots, were published by Finishing Line Press. An Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship recipient, Mary earned her MFA in Writing from Pacific University.
Beholden
I wish we could eat together,
passing the mashed potatoes,
cutting each other off mid-sentence.
I would like to thank you
for being in my body
and of my body.
Remember us, how we spun,
Dylan scratchy on the old
turntable, forewarning.
I wish I had more of you.
Today I saw a purple flower,
blue sky, and a pink camelia.
I pretended you saw them too.
What I really want to say is,
forgive me.
Crossing
The photo shows a red canoe,
listing left—it points toward
the grey lake, like an arrow—
it could be morning or afternoon,
the sky grim as the water.
The lake’s center a sunken shawl
of dark, a deep other beyond.
Fir and pine stand sentry at the dock.
There are no people anywhere—
the world could have ended.
The longing hits me hard—
for you—for us—our laughter
spilling out, your arms
a slow dance with the oars.
We drift, crossing the dark between,
our pool of solitude, bound within
its borders, the puffs of cloud above.
I can’t return, the photo holds the past,
impenetrable and forbidden.