By Christine Brooks

Inside a drop of
   rain,
 in this place of
drowned granite & smooth
cobble

looking out,

from melancholy tears
blown in
from the
Irish Sea
golden Kings walk among
us
as freely as those pale
shadows
that have most unwillingly
gone
ahead if only, to walk us
home

not a mindful breath
away,
like the coos from unseen
birds
in the mossy roots of the
grand twisted trees on the
green

but, instead they
    amble
freely, breaking bread,
proud,

knowing
— finally

we have found a
place,
where prisms of
drink and
foreign silence
let them be seen &
heard
inside &
    out

---

About the Writer:
Christine A. Brooks graduated from Western New England University with a BA in Literature and from Bay Path University with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Her poetry has appeared in Door Is A Jar Magazine, The Cabinet of Heed Literary Magazine, and The Mystic Blue Review. Her vignette, “Finding God,” appeared in Riggwelter Press, and her series of vignettes, “Small Packages,” was a semifinalist at Gazing Grain Press in August 2018. Her essay, “What I Learned from Being Accidentally Celibate for Five Years” featured in HuffPost, MSN, Yahoo and Daily Mail UK. Her book of poems, The Cigar Box Poems, was published in February 2020.