Colleen Farrelly

The Road Once Taken

Two years after the bees leave, five years after the trees heave into the riverbank during a summer storm, fifteen years after college, and twenty years after him, I slosh through the muck left by another summer storm. A mud sludge slips over the path into shallow rapids, and a monarch quaffs deeply from milkweed lining the riverbank beside the rocky outcrop where he and I used to watch wrens nest and cooters slide into the depths.

split shale
names carved over
other names

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About the Author

Colleen M. Farrelly is a poet from Miami, Florida, who writes about her life so far (mostly haibun). A mathematician by day and the author of The Shape of Data (No Starch Press, 2023), she is a 2025-26 confluence fellow who has published her work in Rattle, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and scifaikuest, among others.. She likes swimming, surfing, and science fiction.

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