Alison Prine
If Light Can’t Reach
the bottom of a body of water
it becomes a lake
halfway between Lynn’s house and mine
hidden in a grove of cedars
we shared stolen cigarettes
watching grimy white ducks
glide together toward the shore
while the boy at the bottom of the lake
cast his silence around us
we were most afraid
of what had already happened
things we didn’t talk about
her brother flying
through the front door glass, her father’s fist
how I had been found last
at the scene of the car accident
wedged beneath the front seat
other people’s stories
are easier to touch
the cold surface of Cedarhurst Lake
where thirty years before
a boy our age had gone in
despite the warning
of strong currents
Lynn and I were girls
they whispered about at school
sitting close for hours
his loss floated up between us
as we watched a willow thrash
fighting off the dusk
Alison Prine reads “If Light Can’t Reach”
Alison Prine’s latest collection of poems, LOSS AND ITS ANTONYM (Headmistress Press, 2024), won the 2023 Sappho’s Prize in Poetry and will come out later this year. Her debut poetry collection, STEEL (Cider Press Review, 2016), was named a finalist for the 2017 Vermont Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Five Points, Harvard Review, Prairie Schooner, and others. She lives and works in Burlington, Vermont. Visit her at alisonprine.com.