The mind rubs against the landscape
like a branch
scraping against window glass.
Fence railings blind with solar white.
A sliver of barren mountain above a rooftop.
From the neighbors’ backyard,
a cackle
of laughter, dry brush ready to catch fire.
How strange the idea of belonging anywhere.
August spreads its predatory sky, an assault
of cloudlessness. From under the rosebush
or the hollyhock,
like the creak of a tiny door,
the California Treefrog sings its love song.
I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 3.
Kathy Nelson, recipient of the James Dickey Prize, MFA graduate of the Warren Wilson Program for Writers, and Nevada Arts Council Fellow, is author of The Ledger of Mistakes (Terrapin Books) and two previous chapbooks. Her work appears in About Place, New Ohio Review, Tar River Poetry, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere.
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