photo: sharon auberle
Lists,
Early July
by
Jeanie Tomasko
1.
Four-something in the morning and the cardinal is at it again.
2.
I want to walk, don’t want to wake you.
3.
I want to hear the wood thrush sing.
4.
From some sound sleep, you’re up, don’t want me to walk alone
because
of my new medicine.
5.
Six crows are, well, singing.
6.
Peewee, chickadee, song sparrow.
7.
Yarrow, wild roses, the early white of baptisia on the prairie.
8.
Twenty-eight catbirds imitating the thrush.
9.
Hardware aisle, yesterday, kitchen knobs by the thousands:
smooth,
silver, tarnished, porcelain, rubbed, studded ...
10.
In my pocket, the one I needed to match.
11.
The wood thrush flies from Guatemala
to
this dead oak to sing summer.
12.
The sun is up now, mist rising from the creek.
13.
What I mean is,
14.
Can you sometimes know, exactly
~
first published in The Midwest Quarterly
