Lines about Her
Animals stand at her door sometimes only
For the charity of her hand upon their coat—
Not only for the kibble she offers
And fresh water. The birdfeeders
In her yard get filled to the brim and she never
Minds if the squirrels take a share too
When it rains she says it’s very good
Because the trees need washing
And I know what she means especially in May
When the pollen dusts the leaves
In the evenings she gets pretty tipsy
When she drinks from a bottle of jug wine
She says the reason she had so many lovers
When she was younger is why she needs no one now
Or again, so don’t even think about it, she says
And I look at her and think about it
STUART DISCHELL is the author of Good Hope Road, a National Poetry Series Selection, Evenings & Avenues, Dig Safe, Backwards Days and Children With Enemies and the pamphlets Animate Earth and Touch Monkey and the chapbook Standing on Z. His poems have appeared in The Atlantic, Agni, The New Republic, Slate, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and anthologies including Essential Poems, Hammer and Blaze, Pushcart Prize, and Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems. A recipient of awards from the NEA, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, he teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
