The Risk

By Jack Stewart

---

High up, leaf-shadows
leap like squirrels across
bright spaces.
The shade I stand in below
is indolent
as fog on water.

I want
to write a line that dreams
itself,
or touches a face
back into memory.

Under dead leaves softened
from melted snow
and spring rain,
the syllables
of grubs are moving,
unseen, unheard,
white food.

What do you have to be willing
to take into
your mouth, your belly,
to be able to say
what you want to say?
What do you have to risk
you’ll become?

---

Jack Stewart was educated at the University of Alabama and Emory University and was a Brittain Fellow at The Georgia Institute of Technology. His first book, No Reason, was published by the Poeima Poetry Series in 2020, and his work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Poetry, The American Literary Review, Nimrod, Image and others. 

Jack's other work on Foreshadow:
The Return (Poetry, September 2023)
Camel and Needle (Poetry, October 2023)
Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1) (Poetry, January 2024)
Rest on the Flight into Egypt (2) (Poetry, January 2024)