Amy Small-McKinney
was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2004 & 2006. Her chapbook, Body of Surrender, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2004.
Amy was guest editor of the June 2006 on-line issue of The Pedestal Magazine and interviewed poet Bruce Smith for their April 2006 issue.
Her work has appeared in a number of on-line and print journals, including The Cortland Review, The Pedestal Magazine, upstreet, Elixir, and poetryfish. She recently completed her first full-length book of poems, Language for Returning.
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A Walk
Because I have no answers,
I walk. Away from the house
with yellow shutters and toward
magnolias that drop like egg shells.
Toward music of consent, language
of ascent. I think of her as petal
resigned against blacktop. Head bowed
in bony prayer. Without her,
I am an orphan laborer; I envy
the leaves that fall and never doubt
their own falling. Remarkably, the layers
of this self hold; the wind, almost too robust
for the boxwood trees, holds. This morning,
two massive limbs stretch towards us—
me and the she I carry inside of me—someone
secured them, pinioned them like wings.
Nearby, a green necked mallard marauds
a suburban lawn. How did he get here?
Alone and close to cars? I walk. Until
feather light. Because I have no answers.
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