REBECCA FOUST
I KEEP HOPING
In our minds our sister is lost to us
even as she continues to walk
the earth, pacing the small rooms
of her last home. Waking, sleeping,
barely eating, sleeping, waking,
and effacing minute-by-minute
into a ghost. She is lost
to us, but I keep hoping
that in her own mind she is not lost
—in her mind she is back in her life
taking dictation at the pentagon
and coming home to work
on her dollhouses till dawn,
painting lines fine as an eyelash
with a brush fine as an eyelash,
trimming tiny topiaries and
Christmas trees with twinkle lights
no bigger than the spark
that flies off a cap gun. No bigger
than the beads flocking the trees
in her shadowbox
with its “Winter White” theme
—she is lost to us—
and I keep hoping that in her mind
she is not lost but still there
somewhere, taking dictation
of what is being said
but not understood, unstringing
the tiny, shining pearls
of her memories, picking them up
with tweezers and using a glue gun
to affix each one, beautiful,
immutable, in its perfect place.
SNEAKY LIKE THAT
In the sixth week of living by myself
during the pandemic, I set up a bird feeder
to feel less alone. Now birds
with plump breasts—pigeon and quail,
nuthatch & towhee—are pecking at the trail
of seed laid almost to my back door.
They remind me of bird in The Poetics
of Space using its breast to shape its nest cup
of mud, hollowed and pressed
with so much persistence
that the nest could be said to be made,
also, of suffering.
Lately I’ve been gritting my teeth
through the days, but I’ve also begun
waking to birdsong.
The birds are so many, so close,
&—it occurs to me—not all that fast
or smart. It took a week
to coax them to the feeder,
to teach them it was there—free food
for the taking. Maybe one
could be snared for my dinner,
I think, when the food supply fails. In fact,
I could eat their seed
ground into bread & could
in a real pinch actually catch one,
or maybe it’s time
to start thinking
about buying a gun, you know,
just for food and maybe,
protection. That’s how
the thoughts never thought before
come in now, often,
but rarely articulate—sneaky like that.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca Foust’s fourth full-length book Only (Four Way Books 2022) received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Recognitions include runner up for the 2022 Missouri Review Editors Prize, winner of the Pablo Neruda, CP Cavafy, and James Hearst poetry prizes, a Marin County Poet Laureateship, and fellowships from Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Sewanee. Recent poems are in The Common, Five Points, Ploughshares, POETRY, and Quarterly West.