Wayward
Katie Fesuk
And what if my words came back to me, lost lambs, if—from the four corners of the earth where they have been hiding with their thick coats and strong necks and deep and lovely bleating over lonely and long distances—
if they came back strong as winds
and rainstorms and shocks of lightning
and let me hold them,
let me speak with their tongues
and be a lamb, too, the lamb and the shepherd and the staff?
I wish they were safe
in my own pastures
where nothing should be lost.
What if my words came back
and began to graze
and assemble and be fed?
Would I be whole—
spoken, a new body?
Katie Fesuk, a Massachusetts native and Hambidge Center Fellow, teaches English at the Walker school in Marietta, Georgia and was a Georgia Author of the Year Award nominee for her chapbook, If Not an Apple (La Vita Poetica Press). A Glen East Fellow of Image Journal, she studied English and Creative Writing in doctoral program at Georgia State University, worked as Poet in Residence at The Walker School, and served as Creative Writer in Residence at the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project. Her poems can be found in Five Points, Poet Lore, The Pedestal, Slant, No Tell Hotel, Atlanta Review, and Wicked Alice, among others.