Appalachia Welcome

The room was still wet with paint,
air conditioning still broken, no television
to distract from the way the wind felt different.

Sunset made things real with its chirping crickets
I wasn’t ready to know, to sleep somewhere
that didn’t feel like home.

The windows were closer to the ground, so much so
that I could watch the birds swoop down and eat
worms while I cracked book spines on the floor.

I thought a bird hit the glass,
its body sliding down like the shadows when
the sun used to fall behind the neighborhood parks.

Black eyes and fur, shaped by the trees that
sloped down and climbed up for centuries,
mountains that cradled every cub in its palms.

Pawing at my window, our noses touched
through the fogging glass. I reached up
my hand, to feel real, to understand
the land through touch, but

she ran back home
beneath the sea
of fallen leaves.