Corinna Rae Reilly

Corinna lives surrounded by trees in New York's Hudson Valley where she shares a home with her husband, two dogs, and cat. While she has never stopped creating, for the past decade she’s mostly kept her work to herself. Now, she is once again nudging her work into the world.

You Who Won’t Swim Outside Bathwater

Antler or branch, the string of you
untangles from me slow. Always

measure, measure,
measure, denying the dance
of things. Oh,
so scientific.
But now, frustration

bombs back on you and I ha-
ha into your thighs. You
who pretends deaf to my whistle
as I basket thorn and holly,

find it pulsing
in the blood. Sharp work
requires skill, love
of the throb.

Loud as winter, I whistle.
You la-la-la
and close your eyes.

Devotion & Infidelity

If I look tired this is why:
I crouched
in a garden, waiting
for bees.

Blind
to the radio-red of my lips
they missed –

suckled bluebell and gave me extra
sting.