A poem from the middle of my recent collection.
Originally published: A Mass of Feathers: Love Poems (Bottlecap Press, 2024)
Where it came from
Seeing smoke come out of the house across the street and firetrucks on our tiny, tucked-away street brought back a couple of old memories. This poem started as two or three separate ones before I realized the thread of connection. How fire, burning, and memories are mirrors to one another. And recognizing something similar in the feeling of being woken up in the middle of the night to watch out for something big, uncontrollable, and urgent as a kid and then as an adult. I had forgotten to go outside and look at the harvest moon that night before I went to bed. At the time, I rarely woke up during the night, so it felt important that I did that night. During a year that felt out of my own control during my cancer diagnosis and treatment there was a lot swirling in my head about what it meant to survive something wild and uncontrollable like fire. I leave it to the reader to interpret the “she” in the final line and the question that’s left hanging. I’m not even sure how I’d answer it now.
You can purchase a copy of a Mass of Feathers: Love Poems here. Thank you to those who already have and have sent me messages about your favorite poems, it’s an indescribable feeling to have the privilege to share these.