I Imagine It Carrying My Blood to You

victoria nordlund

This fall is different
from last fall and the one before–
And you don’t deserve to appear

in this poem
that I want to will not text you.
I am here alone now on this bench–

A crow on a leaf-cramped bough subsongs a memory–
I almost miss the silver trail a slug expelled across the hot pavement–
I convince myself there is still worth

in the smudge left
from a moth’s wing,
in the gut

of the beetle
you might have skewered
today in your kitchen sink,

in the mosquito’s needle
that will enter your skin.

***

Victoria Nordlund’s poetry collection Binge Watching Winter on Mute was published by Main Street Rag in June 2019. She is a Best of the Net and 2020 Pushcart Prize Nominee, whose work has appeared in PANK Magazine, Rust+Moth, Pidgeonholes, and elsewhere. Visit her at VictoriaNordlund.com