by Sierra Nelson

All the antlers,

the white wine turned to vinegar.

The theft of my great grandfather’s silver pocket watch.

The butter dish pig, the yellow teapot.

The clever eye of my grandfather

looking through a camera.

The Swedish insomnia,

the laughing sadness.

The mayhem of a stellar jay in the seed dish,

the shock of one cardinal on a ledge in Poughkeepsie,

an inkling of what all crows know.

A tumbleweed, a Jerusalem cricket.

Something about the holy grail in Nova Scotia.

The table that traveled from Colorado in a covered wagon,

then was left outside for decades in the rain.

Sierra Nelson’s books include The Lachrymose Report (Poetry NW Editions) and I Take Back the Sponge Cake (Rose Metal Press) collaborating with artist Loren Erdrich and selected by Anne Carson for NYU’s Washington Square Review Collaboration Prize. Her poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Tin House, Pleiades, and at the Slovenian Natural History Museum. She is also president of Seattle’s Cephalopod Appreciation Society and performs as part of the Vis-à-Vis Society. More info at songsforsquid.tumblr.com