Be coming by Heather Bourbeau

I did not know
when I smelled the lavender
that I was empty;
its scent brushing my calves,
filling my lungs.
 
I did not know
when I ate the mango
that I was not whole;
its tart turning
on my grateful tongue.
 
I did not know
when I felt the madrone
that I was less than;
its peeling bark smooth
under my roughening skin.
 
I did not know
when I heard the wren
that I was invisible;
its trills tumbling
to wake my greying crown.
 
I did not know.
I did not know.
And so, I walked
in wonder.

Heather Bourbeau’s work has appeared or will appear in 100 Word Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Kenyon Review, Meridian, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and SWWIM. She has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia. She lives amid the sage and fog.

Editor-in-Chief Laura Lee Washburn is a University Professor, the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10^thAnniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review. Harbor Review‘s micro-chap prize is named in her honor.