Somewhere There is a Therapist Prescribing me a Long Walk in Fresh Air

During my walk a vulture, half the size of my body,
swoops down to greet its friends, perched neatly
in a line in the grassy patch that slopes into the mangroves,

kissing the bay. My mother calls, and sickness circles
me, a swarming wake, that group of vicious beaks,
they bubble over with laughter at my winglessness,

my inability to escape, to them I am prey.
Though I refuse to believe or bow my head and seek
the sky’s eternity as my mother wishes I would. Truly,

in this moment, she begs me to prey please pray for us
and is this moment not a prayer? The wind, a hymn
that twirls its fingers through the trees' green locks.

The stench of the mangroves, a holler, a hallelujah.
The rippling bay, with it sunken ships, its green and murky depths,
a sacred temple, harboring the dead, as all temples do.

And of course, that swarm of vultures,
is the congregation. Standing at attention,
ready for communion.

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Listen

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Ellie Gomero is a writer, a poet, a feral woman, and a sad girl at heart. She just received her Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Florida International University. Her work has been published in The South Dakota Review, Rust + Moth, and The Orange Island Arts Review, and has received awards / recognition from The Academy of American Poets, Fred Shaw Poetry Contest, Bluapple Poetry Foundation, and Scholastics.