We live in a world where every season begins
with a bullet exiting a shadow
and someone praying for her lilacs, for her
honeysuckle to take root. It’s a hundred degrees
in the shade and the weather argues with itself
over who has the better candidate—
stop you’re both wrong, the sky wins
by a meteor shower. The stars aren’t watching
television tonight, they’re out waltzing
through modern galaxies, a ballroom
of ghosts where everything is about daybreak
and dazzle, how much moondust will trail
into the house. Somewhere between ego
and starshine, we lost our hatbox of kindness,
maybe we stored it in the back closet because fear
seemed much more dramatic on the living-
room table. And we wonder why we think
our neighbor’s a spy and everyone is so on edge.
Some days the stranger planting honeysuckle
to stabilize the cliff leans too far
into the galaxy and we fall
into her optimism. Trust what you don’t
know, like if the honeybees rising
from the heart of the canyon, watch them
like small suns circling the slight blossoms,
watch them slide in, knowing
even a small amount of nectar
is a greater sum than none.
–
Kelli Russell Agodon’s most recent book, Hourglass Museum, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards and shortlisted for the Julie Suk Poetry Prize. Her second book, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, won the Foreword Book of the Year Prize in poetry. Kelli is the co-founder of Two Sylvias Press where she works as an editor and book cover designer. She is also the co-director for Poets on the Coast, a yearly writing retreat for women in La Conner, Washington. She is an avid paddleboarder and hiker who has a fondness for vinyl records and kingfishers.