Hattie Jean Hayes

one

Slate breaks

the sky you gave me yesterday.

We see it at the same time, and know

we always would

have found this place.

There was no other option.

The closer we grow, the greener we get:

some living layer

under bark hearkens

Spring.

We step from the car with nothing

waving and waving and waving

until the treeline breeches.

two

After midnight, we cross the wet

stretch of black grass.

There are places, you whisper,

where the sky is bigger than this,

and the ground,

a basin to collect it.

Years ago,

I ripped a page from a book,

and clipped out the title

of a chapter.

Since,

it has lived

in my pocket.

Before bed,

I unfold the phrase

and paste it on the

horizon:

hi there, stars.

In the morning,

brushing my teeth,

I am drawn back to the field.

You take photos of me,

miniature in the distance,

getting ready.

three

Metaphors escape me until the museum.

A coin, explained.

Female head right, wearing veil.

Border of dots.

Reverse, lute, jug, and axe.

We turn each other

over and over

hoping to understand

our chances.

Not the same. Not the opposite: the other side,

your eyes, and my eyes,

the same grade of green.

I like to think of myself as an axe.

I like to think of myself. The way

you say my name has meaning

that can stand unadorned.

four

You are never without your country.

I navigate alone, and barefoot, bricks thinned

by the weight of the sun.

For miles,

I gather the best that foothills can provide.

We feast on all of time at once, and then

we climb the mountain.

Do you remember the morning, the obelisk,

I ask.

You say you always would have found me.

There was no other option.

We crest the edges of your lineage

and pace,

two pilgrims

come to white stone.

We read your name, until it is mine.

In the Midtown Tunnel you report on the

war.

Not this war,

the one you went to school with.

I am smarter and you know more.

These are the facts as you recall:

The hostile engagement began near Boston.

The first shots were fired as the sun was

rising.

There were never provisions for a fair fight.

On the trails that would become Route One,

men ran north to die on strange banks.

The kingdom collapsed at the sound of the

city,

churches screaming from their bells

runrunrunrun.

These are the things we have in common:

wars, and orchards.

I only understood New England in the

context of decay.

This town is shallow mansions of suffrage

and disgrace.

At the edges of a colony,

one lucky lifetime after steeples broke open,

spilling men over bridges and beaches,

a cadre of daughters outfitted the third house

with tenderness.

These are the things the family left behind,

for history:

Soapstone sink and a painted hutch.

In heaven, I would be sick

missing the home I’ve not yet known.

On the Queensboro Bridge I recite a poem

about the dead and snowflakes,

who cannot think of themselves as birds

nestled in feathers.

You’ve heard it before and kiss my

knuckles.

This is what I write down on a postcard to

myself:

A warning, from across the pond,

against living in quiet desperation.

We pass a dozen churches, and all of them

are silent.