Elisabeth Reidy Denison
September
Days of getting all my edges back
after spring's done
something graceless
and wrecked me
left me in the backyard sweating
out the most precocious sorrow
after it’s dumbed me
more to animal I am annually
reminded
all the better for getting over
my warm weather
body like a plot
of land to be lovingly worked
raked over and watered and
moved about the field
my mind then bodily
re-contained as the trees
contain the farm
when they whistle like a grownup
rushing out We’re here we’re here
and the thicket gives me just enough
of an outline
Elisabeth Reidy Denison’s writing has appeared in Bodega, SAND, Comparative Literature Undergraduate Journal, and on Almost Five Quarterly. A native of Massachusetts and a graduate of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, she now lives in New York City where she is on the editorial staff of The New Yorker.
Return to September 2016 Edition
Days of getting all my edges back
after spring's done
something graceless
and wrecked me
left me in the backyard sweating
out the most precocious sorrow
after it’s dumbed me
more to animal I am annually
reminded
all the better for getting over
my warm weather
body like a plot
of land to be lovingly worked
raked over and watered and
moved about the field
my mind then bodily
re-contained as the trees
contain the farm
when they whistle like a grownup
rushing out We’re here we’re here
and the thicket gives me just enough
of an outline
Elisabeth Reidy Denison’s writing has appeared in Bodega, SAND, Comparative Literature Undergraduate Journal, and on Almost Five Quarterly. A native of Massachusetts and a graduate of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, she now lives in New York City where she is on the editorial staff of The New Yorker.
Return to September 2016 Edition