The yolk’s lush
on the fox’s dark tongue—
mosaic of shell in the dirt
—all the generations come
down to this bright furrow.
They built us a nest,
no promise of security
only a hope for it.
We were only ever invisible
when our mothers hovered
over us, but now, these
new-pitched bodies make
their own demands.
Even as the light quietly fills
the foliage, as the fruit
begins to soften. We knew
it was left to us, as something
low in the field quietly approaches.
Jory Mickelson
Jory Mickelson’s first book, WILDERNESS//KINGDOM, was the inaugural winner of the Evergreen Award Tour from Floating Bridge Press and winner of the 2020 High Plains Book Award in Poetry. Their publications include Court Green, Painted Bride Quarterly, Jubilat, Sixth Finch, and The Rumpus. They are the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and were awarded fellowships from the Lambda Literary Foundation and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico.
