Poem

Green glass comes alive in water.
I miss bright rooms at the heights of trees.

Like the one in Taos

where a magpie spoke to me
in my dream.

It’s okay to be.

Comfort dogs were brought to the wounded
after the terrible shooting in Orlando.

One man couldn’t lift his head

and yet when he
only barely reached through the bed’s bars,

he pet the warm head pushing up at his hand.

They say animals let you feel,
endure your fear.

You can, with the dog there, cry.

Laughing’s a release
then it goes back in.

This spring and summer it rained and rained,

the trees letting their leaves out
more fully than I’d ever seen.

I want to lie

high up in the thick
panels of the elm tree’s green,

birds in their nests at the same level.



Reprinted from Wave House (Flood Editions, 2023) with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved