The Glacier
Issue Two
Winter 2023

THE MOTHERS

That sound you hear is the mothers 

cardboard boxes breaking themselves down 

the days have collapsed into years 

active shooters glyphosate in cheerios 

what are they to do on land with so much 

scattered fuel and so little rain 

they try to keep their voices beige 

they are elevator music the shade of socket covers 

for the children closely watching 

at all times reality testing their mothers 

because thumbtack to the heel 

they can’t freak out in front of the children 

they can’t break a finger on the hand 

arranging stars the mothers cannot 

appear with pieces missing 

allow teeth to fall out of a mood 

that sound you hear is the mothers 

rummaging for the string to pull 

or is it a bell to ring a safe border to cross 

the mothers have been assigned bewilderment 

cocooned in the wet of such tenderness 

the children have up-flowered and been decanted 

they swirl like marbles launched inside a boat

AGENCY

When you realize
you’re in the presence
of another animal
a mutual stillness occurs
the brain springs for reference
gauging scale and outline
holding a bag of trash
color matching in the half-light
cat/turkey/possum you’re not sure
before the shape turns
ambles over dried leaves
cumbersome in gait
and there it is
like an exclamation point
the curious spike of white
but there’s no raised tail now
or hint of odor
which I tend to like
for its cloud of surprise when driving
or the strongly worded note
it leaves in a forest
the skunk is a solitary animal
with poor eyesight
who relies on tender paws
to navigate and just needing
a little space to forage
which I’m glad to give
retreating back into the house
its cell division and right angles

NATURAL MATH

I found a meal service that pre-chops onions

I’m saying our dinner

is coming through the mail

there’s grass in the yard

so it’s April

soccer season I’ve ordered cleats

there’s purple lupin out there

a clump of turkey feathers gold matchbox car

five bocce balls on uneven land    did it

rain feathers?



We find a head and beak

little to eat of the face and why

a talon is in the weeds

the foot the shank the hock—

I’ve heard the thump tone of the tom

leading the harem full fan and strut

there’s been an occupation of the cypress

turkeys vertical at dusk chorusing inside it

if you warble from the driveway

they answer back

ATMOSPHERIC RIVERS

Remember   we might say
that time when it rained and for so long

and maybe without
being loud at all on the roof

the rain saturated burn scars and shallow arteries
and then it kept coming

the rain it broke the trees in places
made of the ground a slurry

such that roots lost hold
oaks and monterey pines dropped like cannons

their enormous uptangles
behind crushed cars and caution tape

as the rain  and the what next
outgrew containment

and we began to feel the river
move inside of us

over knotted shoelaces
drummed against steering wheels

free play and thought caves
the river pushed at the brim

flushed through and running west
would we remember

high wind and surf advisories
how we were drawn

to the folding swells
coming at us where we stood small

between the coast and the full speed of a river

ALL WE CAN DO

Here is a house here are the people who stayed inside

how very true the sticks they draw for hands

parks open again live school back on

the children run their happiness through the hole in the tire swing

the ground is a matter of fact as are the trees

and the sun

for the way it makes a show of leaving

the legs of the crickets are real

the bats larger than anyone remembers

scissor the clouds

SARA MICHAS-MARTIN is the author Gray Matter, winner of the Poets Out Loud Prize and nominated for a Colorado Book Award. Her writing has been supported by a Wallace Stegner fellowship, grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize, as well as fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, VCCA and Marble House Project. She received “notable essay” mentions in the 2023 Best American Nonfiction Essays and the 2023 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies. Recent work appears in the American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, and Terrain.org. She is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford.

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