The Glacier
Issue One
Fall 2022

Prediction

In the lunar house it will be obvious

which trees have spherical leaves, why it is hard

to pinpoint the faraway olive, the near birch. 

Once I was swimming in quarantine 

day after day. Is writing

writing it down? There must be a lot unsaid

even to start.

Time’s Being

Current
of the lake is swift
like a river
Is it a river? I ask but no one
says yes or no one
knows
because it is a lake
that merges w/other lakes
I ask for a map but 
		                 none appears

Present location 
for 9 more days:
up Highway 129
north of Thessalon, Ontario
north of U. S., Undone States

	          N O R T H

	          Nearly
	          Out of
	          Reach, she
	          Talks to
	          Herself

Border guards will call every day, they said, but haven’t yet.
I make a list:

	       2 moose 1 loon the single
	       constant chipmunk
	       multiple birds
	       no boats except a metal row & old blue
	       kayak
	       cloud     sky

Water lilies not to be told
but a loon comes around
		


Two parts of land are connected by a log bridge from the 40s falling down 

On this side the water’s called something

On that side the water’s called something else

All five lakes are connected, or
one big waterbody has five names

Beavers make another lake across the highway 
& across a meadow, which is mown

The five lakes are:

	       Wakomata, furthest east
	       Jobammageeshig
	       Huston, barely connecting to
	       Blue Heaven (a sixth?)
	       Chub
	       Little Chub

The name of the biggest, Jobammageeshig, is said so fast that only the first syllable’s clear to the 
                                                                                                                                                                         settler or visiting ear

There’s a “Crown plate” nailed to a post:
Plate #
1024389

On the water,

	five blue dragonflies

	lightest boat


In the water

	every detail, one by one
	

11th day

	in the eye-shaped curve of the layered rock,
	one may be permitted
	to be with it (butterfly on rock wall)
	but not go toward
	
	Don’t imagine anything you know

D A W N T O D U S K

Dear
Anyone
With or Without
Names


				                            To
				                            Open


							                                           Day-and-night
							                                           Unselving with
							                                           Shushing wind at however many									
							                                           Knots

July 23

Loons last night
(I almost wrote lunes)
both to the east of me (across the lake)
and to the west of me (in the woods)

Then this morning (dawn was red),
loons again
for the last full day, same as last week
day after day

Now a loon to the north sounds excited about something

Maybe fill in
words you see:  L O O N
  
           [with]	  Letters
                		  One by
                		  One	
                		  Nearly present 

Off you go

LISA FISHMAN‘s most recent book of poetry is Mad World, Mad Kings, Mad Composition (Wave Books, 2020). Her debut collection of stories, World Naked Bike Ride, has just been published by Gaspereau Press. She has new poetry in Granta and recent prose in Guesthouse and The Rupture. She lives in Orfordville, Wisconsin, and teaches at Columbia College Chicago.

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