Heather Nelson writes: “I’m a poet, teacher, mother and recovering attorney. I studied writing under the poet C.D. Wright as an undergraduate at Brown University. Most recently I have studied poetry with Tom Daley and Barbara Helfgott Hyett. I am also a member of Poemworks, the workshop for publishing poets.

Heather Nelson

Fresh Pond, Fallen

The trees tell me they’re chill
there’s no need to call
on them quite so often ,
but birds still have needs
I’m sharply reminded
by seven jays harping
the golf course blues
from the green fronds of the willow.

Furthermore, bittersweet
should not be allowed
to climb so brilliantly high,
taunting the earnest and drab
native gardener with insouciant
faces of Mandarin orange,
shining with menace.

I’d tend to my hunger if it weren’t
always there, its reminder jockeying
for my attention with my husband’s voice,
thrown like a stone in the water.

Denial takes practice, my eyes sip the cordial
of berries left for cardinals, drain the plump green
milkweed pods to the last draught, like absinthe.

— Heather Nelson

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