Tamarah Rockwood obtained her degree in Creative Writing and Literature from Harvard University and is the Founder and CEO of Bainbridge Island Press, an independent poetry publishing house. Tamarah has become a leader in western Washington organizing several local poetry events and communities, including Ars Poetica WA which brings poets and artists together, and Poetry Corners, an annual celebration of poetry and poets on Bainbridge Island. She is the current President of ANHW, the Alumnae/i Network of Harvard Women through the Harvard Club of Seattle. Rockwood has been published in places such as One Art, Paddler Press, The Future of Us, Oregon Poetry Association, The Argonaut, and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives on Bainbridge Island, WA, with her husband and five children; they also love their cat, Yoshi, their bird, Poppy, and their flock of ducks.

Actually

Let’s define it:

it is an adverb.

it ends with -ly.

it is an action.

Actually.

Let me explain it:

it is a sound.

it is a moment.

it is the Volta in a sonnet.

Actually.

I feel it, like

it is waking up in a new room.

or it is like

smelling a cologne from my grandfather’s neck.

or it is like

when you have stared a little too long,

or when you smiled a little too big.

or it is like

learning something new.

Something that is, actually, true.

No, but Actually

Is when the ship left to cross the waters

Is when the foot left to step the threshold

Is when the mouth opened to say goodbye

But, Actually,

The foot did not step, the

Mouth did not speak, and the ship

Was set on fire by a rocket.

Actually.

This is not a dictionary, and we are not reading a definition

Of anything. We are turning

Our words into

A new truth.

Odysseus, Mixed Media

You had to leave the war.
The war was over, there.

On your way home,
You stopped looking for home.

You asked where your men were,
Which direction the sky was pointing;
And I told you that
the sky was fake.

You took my hand
And I led you away from the war.

Under my LED sun and
Over Cuban sandwiches
With cool beer that you accepted so eagerly,
As you drowned yourself into my brown eyes
And listened to my rabbit-trail stories
That led your ears away from the sounds
Of mechanical reloading, and you listened
To my papier-mâché projects that created trees,
And how to mold chicken-wire to make men,
And how to stack rocks to built a lighthouse;

Nothing in this world seemed real.
Because it isn’t real, silly.

You listened to my flattering stories
About other sailors who failed to win against the sea,
And I would watch them crash into my little island
That my father had given to me
When I, myself, was driftless and distracted.
He said, I remember so clearly, that I needed a goal
In life. Something to keep me grounded and,
Undoubtedly, out of trouble.

We debated mundane topics between scraps of paper
Left on the counter next to the felt bananas.

During the days we would ignore the acrylic vineyards
And we would lay on our backs on the astroturf
until the sun blinded you.
There were no shadows at noon.

The shadows of your land were never long enough
To reach across the sea
To my shores.

Slowly, the crags of Greece slipped out of your eyes
And your frown melted in the sun.

You had arrived with your stoic eyes and
The beeswax still in your ears.

I let you wrestle with yourself.
I let you wrestle with the war.
I let the beeswax melt in your ears.

You were escaping the war.
You lived in this unreal world of my own.
This little domestic world that I live in
That I crafted. We have dinner at 7.
Trash goes out on Thursday.
There are no alarms in the morning.
There are no orders for you.

You exist
As yourself
With no one to hurt
You in this place.

But, your eyes followed the shadows during cocktail hour,
So you kept asking yourself how was the sky so blue?
I tell you again: This sky of mine
Isn’t real.

I pour you another drink
As the sun sets into a comfortable quilt of colors.
Yes, I even spun the sunset on my loom.
I created everything, here;
The imaginary time in between
War and home.

I will admit that I felt my heart sink
When you sleepily asked me
If I had ever made a boat.

Erupt

As a fool in love I erupt into the day
As if this day was a year.

I open my eyes the way
A bank opens its doors:

With purpose, with a deadline,
With cuts to be made.

I begin to breathe first through my nose
As if this breath was God’s.

My chest is full of the day when I am awake, as if
I am full of a year; as if I am a year

With nothing but mornings,
Just before the afternoon shadows creep over me.

And I — just for a moment, just give me a second
to catch my breath — open my eyes

As if they were petals and I lay silent in the morning
as if I were a lily, and not the bank with

Ledgers and pantyhose and doors and cuts.
Actually, my eyes

Have begun to turn their impossible buds pink —
My eyes rumble into petals that I had thought

Could not have survived through this long winter,
the cold winter that killed three other plants, at least —

The morning sits on my eyes
And I am forced to gaze

On my strength to outlast these vulnerable mornings
That are relentlessly followed by the afternoon shadows
that devour me.

It is morning.
I erupt as a bud.

Impostor Syndrome starts with I

I read somewhere
That no one will remember
Who you are after
Three generations.

And, I suppose that’s true.
I certainly
Don’t know who Lila was,
Even through my father does.

So, I don’t mind
Writing.
Even writing poorly; because,
Otherwise, who will ever remember

That I was a
A being from Earth
Who loves the taste of red wine
And the smell of carnations?

Seawater

This is the scene:
The woman lays on the floor.
This is me, I am the woman
Laying on my floor, And I am
restless. I am laying on this
White stone floor like a virgin
On an altar who is not leaving
Until something happens. You
Know what I am waiting for. Of
Course you know, we all know.
Some of us have waited until
Marriage; some have waited until
Prom; some waited until the
Right time; some didn’t realize
They were waiting and just went
For it; but, still, there was a time
Before their bodies became some-
Thing more than just arms, and
Their breasts became something
They wanted to touch and suck;
Among other things. I was in that
Category. And then all the men
On earth disappeared; or, I did.
I am in exile on Ogygia with no
One to seduce, with no one for
Whom to make a full English
Breakfast, no one to find me
Laying here on the floor, in wait.
The sound of the waves call to
Me like no other. The rocking
Of seawater on the barnacled,
Sunbleached rocks torments
My neck and I arch like a boat.
My nerves are all on my skin.
I can hear everything alive
From the floor: I can hear the
Gulls screaming in the wind, on
The shoreline. I can hear the
Crabs hustling door to door.
I can hear the clams spitting at
The surface. I can hear the
Beat of my pulse in my ears.
In every scene, there needs
To be action. But, I am telling
You, there will be no action
For me unless I do the work
Myself. Again.