after William Stafford
After the third, it was what’s next
all that fall. When she started to crawl
and we lost the house and my job it was
what’s next. It was what’s next whenever
we tried to pray or even to say what
had happened or was happening to us,
day by day, in the rain, as always.
Winter came and we slipped down
the steep driveway of the new place:
temporary like everything now—the snow,
the place—while we waited. We waited
in the trees as the wet from our breath
ticked down the single pane windows
not knowing whether they would fall out
or when.
–
Mischa Willett is the poet responsible for The Elegy Beta and Phases and editor of Philip James Bailey’s Festus. His poems, essays, translations, and academic articles appear in a wide range of venues.