top of page
Anita Olivia Koester
"I continue to believe that poetry remains one of our most vital reservoirs of reflection, solace, and outrage within a world replete with horrors."
-David St. John
![IMG_3845.JPG](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c122fb_7645ffad8426455e8108e145dfb66451~mv2.jpg/v1/crop/x_555,y_0,w_2358,h_3024/fill/w_459,h_589,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/IMG_3845_JPG.jpg)
POEM EXCERPT
The murky river settles into my eyes,
my mouth rejects, then accepts the water,
fish slip against my skin.
A stone at my throat,
another tied round my ribcage,
a rope—familiar—
slices into my wrists. The dead
do not grieve the death of others.
As I sink, I think—
God is an elegy the world writes.
It’s what makes the concept so beautiful.
The way time is beautiful: brief and endless.
-from "Elegy for the Almost Drowned"
Published in South Dakota Review
bottom of page