We cousins stood around the well, 
a memory caught like a photo—
down in the shadow, light 
glimmered on water—brief moment 
echoing into now. 

Five-year-old trapped in a well. 
I was five, too, hovering on the radio’s 
reported attempts at rescue—
a parallel shaft dug—finally reached 
in time to bury her. 

Japanese maids surrounded the edge 
of the well. Leaned over, calling, calling 
the sick child’s name—echoing walls 
to lead her spirit back. 
Home is this way. 

Bones of Mayan girls littered 
with jade and turquoise, even gold—
gifts flung with them to carry 
to the gods from the bottom of the well. 
“Speak of us with favor.” 

I stand at a well wishing 
for direction—a light in the dark, 
a hint, even—from the mysterious 
universe that sent me here 
with a message I’m still decoding. 

Judith Yarrow

writes science fiction and poetry in Seattle, Washington. Her short stories and poems have been published in various places over many years, most recently in AntipodeanSF [Issue 331, 17 June 2026], The Bluebird Word [see link below], Meniscus [Volume 13, Issue 2, 2025], and The Tiger Moth Review [Issue 16, 2026].

Her poetry also appears in the anthology WA129: Poems Selected By Tod Marshall: State Poet Laureate, 2016–2018 (Sage Hill Press, 2017); and in the online collection of Washington State poetry, The Far Field (2012–2014), curated by Kathleen Flenniken when she was Washington State Poet Laureate.

Find more of the author’s work at her website, Yarrow House:
https://www.jyarrow.com/

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ In a Mirror Clearly Now, poem by Judith Yarrow in The Bluebird Word (23 October 2025)