Andre F. Peltier (he/him) is a Lecturer III at Eastern Michigan University where he teaches literature and writing. He lives in Ypsilanti, MI, with his wife and children. His poetry has recently appeared in various publications like CP Quarterly, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Provenance Journal, About Place, Novus Review, Wingless Dreamer, and Fahmidan Journal, and most recently he has had a poem accepted by Lavender and Lime Literary. In his free time, he obsesses over soccer and comic books.
Twitter: @aandrefpeltier
Website: www.andrefpeltier.com
Boxing the Compass
“If only that little butterfly could always flutter before me to show me the way” 1
I watched a monarch
butterfly,
orange, black, white,
flutter among the coneflowers.
It hovered in the spiderwort
boxing the compass
as it traced its path
back and forth
back and forth
from bud to bud.
I watched and realized.
Like that monarch,
we are all
boxing the compass.
We all flutter back and forth
looking for a place to land
Looking for that place of
safety, security.
Looking for a place
to call home.
1. Kazantzakis, Nikos. Zorba the Greek. Translated by Carl Wildman. Scribner, 1981. P 121.
I Never Heard the Ocean Sing
The beautiful, bleached shell
was hooked to the fluke
but then sat by our
television for
decades.
Gently, while home from
school with fevers,
stomach aches,
migraines,
I would hold it to my ear.
The air currents
through the
coils
were supposed to sound
like the crashing
waves of
Egmont
and Longboat, The
Azores and The
Maldives,
but there
was only
silence.