To Follow You

Asleep, you are 
a glacier calving, 
weight that falls 

by weary dictate, 
behind a sheet 
of snow-arrows

hissing white noise. 
I watch 
at a loving distance, 

follow icebergs 
as they float past, 
exhausted. 

I watch the shadow 
of your shoulder 
as I would watch, 

aching and unblinking, 
one fluke and then 
another

break 
the water’s surface, 
insomnia churning 

with spume, 
choked motors 
and wave-slap. 

But it’s the low 
frequencies 
that travel farthest.

The weight 
of your sleep is 
a whale’s deep call,

heavy and beyond 
human hearing. 
To follow you there

is to follow 
a wake halfway
across the ocean.

OLIVIA J. KIERS

Raised in rural Virginia, Olivia J. Kiers is a poet and museum professional now based in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Tilde, Twin Pies Literary, and Plainsongs, and is forthcoming in Up the Staircase Quarterly. Her art criticism can be read in The Boston Art Review and others.