AMANDA JANE MCCONNON
Preparing for Winter
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
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 in BOXCAR Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2014, and others.
