for Nikky Finney
The sky was apricots. The moon a sliver.
Buckeyes on ground. Apples above.
You smell the poem before you see it.
A blurred-edged memory becomes clear:
fruit under feet, groundhogged dirt, sun,
the sky – apricots, the moon – silver.
All is remembering: orchards,
warm dirt, a rough hand, the wind.
You smell the poem. You see it.
Words fall forward over memory. Say:
carry what you have. Stay with it.
The sky was apricots. The moon a sliver.
Words breathe, build, spell,
hold this text stitched with cotton.
You smell the poem, then you see it:
my grandfather’s hand hanging down,
holding mine, my elbow loose, swinging.
The sky was apricots, the moon a sliver.
Smell the poem. See it.
Jeremy Michael Reed is a PhD student in Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee. His poems have appeared in Still, Stirring, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Knoxville, where he’s the Editor-in-Chief for Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts and co-directs The Only Tenn-I-See Reading Series.