Lían by Riley Barnes

Shotgun rider—

The car heavies from applauding the sunrise

And stories from home

She talks of perpetual eighty-degrees, her father’s boat, and the tidepool she frequents

Isoprene and fog cannot dull her scent of sea breeze,

Or the fruit she grows in her backyard

Instead, she turns it into a different kind of blue,

One that binds mountain to the sea

Though the tidepool she speaks of is shallow,

And its depth wavers,

Her passion is waist-deep;

I see it when we talk about God

At the screaming infancy of morning

Other times, she is silent

Like praying in the passenger seat

As the car’s boxy frame slides and spins and drifts across iced backroads

(I am glad she was the one pleading quietly,

I do not know if my heathen calls would be answered as fast)

Or when she falls asleep under the weight of fractions and informative writing

Just like when she was a baby, she tells me,

When her mother would drive her around the island

To soothe her little mind

Miles and miles from tidepools, I wonder

How does one manage to make a space feel so much like home,

While being so far from it?