You asleep across the sheets, the type of animal who isn’t one
for conquest–– at most a few seeds hoarded,
a few woven branches. In our yard, the light gets greener
as it touches all the things it can’t be. At night,
what I can see shrinks to what’s within the radius of this
bedside lamp. I shrink with it and awake each morning
astonished to still be in this skin.
There will be a time in which I look at you
and suddenly don’t feel as if I’ve been locked out of my home,
but you will play no part in it. This treeline we live on
was built from what the animals gathered and forgot.
185 The Paris-American
Amanda
Jane McConnon has an MFA from New York University and lives in a shore town in
New Jersey. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming inBOXCAR Poetry
Review, Best New Poets 2014,and others.