STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
CAROLIENA CABADA
Rabbit tracks on the ream of snow
cover the frozen creek, swerving
away from the bank and back again.
Sometimes they
full stop in the middle.
That's when I wonder
and worry.
No scratchy signs of
scrabbling, fighting off something swooping
to lift with a razor grasp.
Just prints in a parallelogram,
revealing their gait
without smear of snow showing body
dragging, falling, pulling away.
If they retraced their path
unerringly, placing feet exactly where they'd
been before, I need them to teach me
how to be a mystery.
And I need to tell them:
Retracing steps is not the same as
taking them back.
Caroliena Cabada is a writer based in Ames, Iowa. She was the recipient of the 2018-2019 Pearl Hogrefe Fellowship in Creative Writing at Iowa State University, where she is currently completing an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment. Her poems have been published in online and print journals and anthologies, and more of her work can be found at carolienacabada.com.
