by Magda Andrews-Hoke

At night
I went down and through
the memory of
a staircase
years ago.

The sea
was calling me
to go, and so
I went
through memory and years

from my room
and down the stairs,
outside
into the salty air,
where seagulls squalled

as I walked
to the sea’s black bed.
Everything that housed me
was invisible
and still is.

---

Magda Andrews-Hoke lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she works at the Kelly Writers House as managing editor of Jacket2 magazine. She studied Linguistics and English at Yale University and Theology and the Arts at the University of St. Andrews. Her poems and prose can be found in Commonweal Magazine, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere.