3 Poems by William Doreski
Magnetic North
Dislocated by climate change,
magnetic north is hiding
in a wooden tin-roofed shed
beside the Willamette River
forty miles south of Portland.
Our compasses force us to follow.
We arrive in a shiver of doubt.
We park at a boat launch where
pickups with gun racks idle,
their drivers slumped over pints.
A few houseboats dot the river.
Music tinkles from one. A nude
sunbathes in her taut beige skin.
Her smile is casually sawtoothed.
We approach the shed. Inside,
some massive creature is groaning,
homesick for Ellesmere Island,
where it savored the frigid air.
Now it’s crouching in the dark
and facing a colorless future.
The nude waves, blows us a kiss.
Ignore her clumsy flirtations.
She wants to obscure the fact
that every line of force converges
in this fresh location, teasing us
with magnetic theories no one
fully appreciates except
geophysicists too abstract
in body and soul to respond
with the pastels of emotion.
We enter the shed. Tingling
with electrical thrills, we flash
our flashlights and see nothing
What did we expect? A stark
embodiment? The distant
music from that houseboat
suggests we dance away our doubt
and accept that sunbathing stranger
as the only figure capable
of placing us on the map.
Sea Stars For Sale
Dried for sale, sea stars remind you
that we haven’t seen the Atlantic
breathing heavily along a beach
for a couple of plague-struck years.
We could drive to the edge and peer
into the surf and soothe ourselves
with clamburgers from the joint propped
on the lip of the parking lot.
The ocean is a demanding creature.
If we don’t visit, it will come
to us with gusty currents shaped
to drag us toward the ultimate depth
where secret phosphorescence prevails.
We live only sixty miles inland
and can’t excuse ourselves for missing
appointments with the under-gods.
The sea stars look artificial.
Evolution shaped their poise.
Not all tidepool creatures display
such formal respect. We would,
if we had to live in the shallows.
We would shape exquisite shells
and gladly risk collection
for museums where small children
would gasp covetous little gasps.
Soon the under-gods will die,
and nitrogen runoff will sicken,
and plastic scrap will choke the sea.
If we stand on the beach, we’ll catch
a whiff of that prophetic death.
Once the ocean has simplified,
a hurricane will lift and place it
on the altar of entropy,
where we can kneel all creaky
in calcified bodies and offer
the last of our present tense.
Corpse Flower
Night rain curdles in the weeds.
At three AM I’m reading
Flannery O’Connor aloud
to the cats. They deplore
the racial language but love
the texture, dialogue, and use
of local color. What color
are the storms surging past
with their various intonations?
I lean into the prose and raise
my voice to void the music
of a jazz-inflected cold front
scrubbing everything in its path.
I read to the end of the story,
then slump and turn out the light.
The sky no longer appreciates
my love of bats and owls, creatures
of indigo dusk. Before the rain
arrived, I was counting the bats,
scarcer now than ten years ago
when I’d see a dozen at a time.
The depletion of nature saddens
even the Indian Pipe aroused
in my compost heap. The favorite
flower of Emily Dickinson,
who called it corpse flower
because mortality and im-
mortality merge in its lack
of chlorophyll. I also lack
essential color, yet have thrived
for three quarters of a century
without imprinting a spoor.
Dislocated by climate change,
magnetic north is hiding
in a wooden tin-roofed shed
beside the Willamette River
forty miles south of Portland.
Our compasses force us to follow.
We arrive in a shiver of doubt.
We park at a boat launch where
pickups with gun racks idle,
their drivers slumped over pints.
A few houseboats dot the river.
Music tinkles from one. A nude
sunbathes in her taut beige skin.
Her smile is casually sawtoothed.
We approach the shed. Inside,
some massive creature is groaning,
homesick for Ellesmere Island,
where it savored the frigid air.
Now it’s crouching in the dark
and facing a colorless future.
The nude waves, blows us a kiss.
Ignore her clumsy flirtations.
She wants to obscure the fact
that every line of force converges
in this fresh location, teasing us
with magnetic theories no one
fully appreciates except
geophysicists too abstract
in body and soul to respond
with the pastels of emotion.
We enter the shed. Tingling
with electrical thrills, we flash
our flashlights and see nothing
What did we expect? A stark
embodiment? The distant
music from that houseboat
suggests we dance away our doubt
and accept that sunbathing stranger
as the only figure capable
of placing us on the map.
Sea Stars For Sale
Dried for sale, sea stars remind you
that we haven’t seen the Atlantic
breathing heavily along a beach
for a couple of plague-struck years.
We could drive to the edge and peer
into the surf and soothe ourselves
with clamburgers from the joint propped
on the lip of the parking lot.
The ocean is a demanding creature.
If we don’t visit, it will come
to us with gusty currents shaped
to drag us toward the ultimate depth
where secret phosphorescence prevails.
We live only sixty miles inland
and can’t excuse ourselves for missing
appointments with the under-gods.
The sea stars look artificial.
Evolution shaped their poise.
Not all tidepool creatures display
such formal respect. We would,
if we had to live in the shallows.
We would shape exquisite shells
and gladly risk collection
for museums where small children
would gasp covetous little gasps.
Soon the under-gods will die,
and nitrogen runoff will sicken,
and plastic scrap will choke the sea.
If we stand on the beach, we’ll catch
a whiff of that prophetic death.
Once the ocean has simplified,
a hurricane will lift and place it
on the altar of entropy,
where we can kneel all creaky
in calcified bodies and offer
the last of our present tense.
Corpse Flower
Night rain curdles in the weeds.
At three AM I’m reading
Flannery O’Connor aloud
to the cats. They deplore
the racial language but love
the texture, dialogue, and use
of local color. What color
are the storms surging past
with their various intonations?
I lean into the prose and raise
my voice to void the music
of a jazz-inflected cold front
scrubbing everything in its path.
I read to the end of the story,
then slump and turn out the light.
The sky no longer appreciates
my love of bats and owls, creatures
of indigo dusk. Before the rain
arrived, I was counting the bats,
scarcer now than ten years ago
when I’d see a dozen at a time.
The depletion of nature saddens
even the Indian Pipe aroused
in my compost heap. The favorite
flower of Emily Dickinson,
who called it corpse flower
because mortality and im-
mortality merge in its lack
of chlorophyll. I also lack
essential color, yet have thrived
for three quarters of a century
without imprinting a spoor.
William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His most recent book of poetry is Mist in Their Eyes (2021). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals.
