✨ Exodus

the geography of air ...

Exodus

Milk froths over, feathery in a glazed mug. I watch a woodpecker forget the geography of air—churn in the invisible. Then flee. I feel silence to mean what’s missing, never shapeless. Some days love. Another round of snow arriving, another mistake I’ll settle into as understanding more about what I’ve become. I am looking for the word that falls between almost and touch. That consideration. It has its own airspace. The gap where the juniper was chopped is a frame now. If only the light would enter, I could trick myself into believing it was heat. 

—Megan Merchant

From Hortensia in Winter, New American Press, Copyright © 2024. Used by permission of the publisher. Photo by Adam Chang, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.