Kimberly O'Connor

Because ambitious but poorly advised workers
removed the ivy that covered the fence,
we can now see as well as hear
the people who scream in the alley

*

A neighbor presses down grass clippings she’s using as mulch
carefully,
like a caress

* 

The presence of three dragonflies
signified the absence of all the other dragonflies

*

Things I have mourned like
not giving my daughter a middle name like Wren

*

What I saw—

hopping—

in the grass
was not a rabbit but a squirrel

*

The poetry teacher said no writing about spring flowers or autumn leaves,
the only subjects I wanted to claim

*

Seven pines shade
their own needles and dropped cones

*

that they are there or
so much depends upon

*

If you turn the sky into a grid, some squares are blue and white like sky is supposed to
be, but in some the clouds have black flat bottoms

*

No one treasures
ten straight hours of sleep like
the former mother of a newborn

 * 

When I took out the trash
the man holding the suitcase
smiled at me

*

The yoga teacher said put your sacred gemstones under the full moon
but I forgot, and I had no sacred gemstones

 *

All the places I’m not right now, like pre-op for heart surgery

*

Today the people who sleep in Dailey Park
wake up to the songs of a finite number of birds