Beverly Burch's work appears in The Antioch Review, Barrow Street, North American Review, Poetry International, Southern Poetry Review, Nimrod, Tar River Poetry, Many Mountains Review, and Red Rock Review and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her book, Sweet to Burn, won the Gival Poetry Prize for 2004 and a Lambda Literary Award. It is available through Amazon.com. She has published two collections of nonfiction: On Intimate Terms (U. of Ill. Press) and Other Women (Columbia University Press). She is also a psychotherapist in Berkeley, California.

See other poems:

• Skiing Antarctica
• Dead Center
• Sky/Branches/Sky
• Beatitude
• When You Ask About Your Native Country

Email Beverly Burch at bvburch@yahoo.com

Beverly has been featured in PoetryMagazine.com.

Above the Bay

Ohlone Canyon turns slick after heavy rain,
but we agree to meet, hope the muck’s hardened.
Our trail looks churned, congealed, a mosaic—
sticks-rock-mud—a rough ribbon in the woods.

We hold hands inside your pocket. A truce,
you say. I didn’t want to name it, make us self-
conscious. Signs of recovery. Yes.
I could take issue, but the sky’s a blue relief,

Farallones visible past the Golden Gate.
Why is tenderness not simple? Like the throb
of warmth in April, the reliable way
spring offers itself. And the glossy body

of the bay below, how sun falls across
water, gold paint spilling over broken glass.

First published in Tar River Poetry. Copyright © Beverly Burch

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