Housewarming, and: The View
Rent from DeepDyve- Housewarming, and: The View
Housewarming
The day I move, shuffling boxes and baggage from car to porch, porch to door, door to loft, Amos spends helping friends slaughter pigs, shots echoing from the neighbor’s orchard, scent of apples rotting in the sun mingling with steaming blood. That night, he brings me a heart in white butcher paper. Together we unwrap the rust-colored lump, wondering which knife,
how sharp, where do we slice? What can we savor, and what, if anything, should we throw to the dogs?
The View
Morning, and the rosehips stay plump with frost then pucker and thaw in sea breeze from the bluff. Two figures hold hands and traverse the mud, their outlines small against the shattered clouds, the wind shipping whole fragments to my shed. From the window I hear: Bowerbirds . . . bloom . . . bounty. All the beautiful Bs thump as shutting doors do. I hear: Listen, darling . . . I hear: Lousy you . . . Language is smaller than love, is a nest
when a spaceship is needed. [End Page 106]
Sierra Hana Golden received her mfa in poetry from North Carolina State University. Winner of the program’s 2012 Academy of American Poets Prize, Golden’s work appears or is forthcoming in such literary journals as the Chicago Quarterly Review, Permafrost, and Ploughshares. She has also been awarded residencies by Hedgebrook, the Island Institute, and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. Although she calls Washington State home, Golden has spent many summers in Alaska working as a commercial fisherman.
