Matthew Kelsey
Birdlike, the Almanac
The first day of spring / was a year / to the day my father
sprang & left me / an orphan an / orbitless moon / was
the day my body was fully immune / My body was learning
what it took / to take / my father / what it would have
taken to keep him / The first day / of spring my body
was learning was / as much the last fast / spaz of winter / My
body was learning / without me / teaching a thing / The first
day of spring I sat on the couch / to work to / teach sat to keep
kids busy / to take them closer / to summer or somewhere
other than spring / I was teaching without me
learning a thing / After work / my body dimly remained
at home on the couch It / languished / was wistful / was half
committed to therapy there / pretending the couch was
my therapist’s chair / At last the first / day of spring
was the last / of the first / year of grief / first orbit
geared to the next / My body knew not / what to call it that
unremarkable extra day in an extra full turn of being / without
For all its love / my heart spent years / learning not to live
like my father / my mother rather / taking me farther in / my harbor
ardor / fervor of love but / the first of spring was the first / I knew
how not to die / like him / was the first I knew I knew
nothing of spring.
Matthew Kelsey was born in Glens Falls, NY, and currently lives in Chicago. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Pinwheel, Colorado Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Best New Poets, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. He has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, a teaching fellowship from the Kenyon Review Young Writers Program, and an Idyllwild Arts Writers Week Fellowship.
Return to January 2022 Edition
The first day of spring / was a year / to the day my father
sprang & left me / an orphan an / orbitless moon / was
the day my body was fully immune / My body was learning
what it took / to take / my father / what it would have
taken to keep him / The first day / of spring my body
was learning was / as much the last fast / spaz of winter / My
body was learning / without me / teaching a thing / The first
day of spring I sat on the couch / to work to / teach sat to keep
kids busy / to take them closer / to summer or somewhere
other than spring / I was teaching without me
learning a thing / After work / my body dimly remained
at home on the couch It / languished / was wistful / was half
committed to therapy there / pretending the couch was
my therapist’s chair / At last the first / day of spring
was the last / of the first / year of grief / first orbit
geared to the next / My body knew not / what to call it that
unremarkable extra day in an extra full turn of being / without
For all its love / my heart spent years / learning not to live
like my father / my mother rather / taking me farther in / my harbor
ardor / fervor of love but / the first of spring was the first / I knew
how not to die / like him / was the first I knew I knew
nothing of spring.
Matthew Kelsey was born in Glens Falls, NY, and currently lives in Chicago. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Pinwheel, Colorado Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Best New Poets, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. He has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, a teaching fellowship from the Kenyon Review Young Writers Program, and an Idyllwild Arts Writers Week Fellowship.
Return to January 2022 Edition