Fall 2023

new spring

By Carrie George

After the car ride to the new house,
the engine cutting in the new drive way,
fresh pavement slanting under us,
dad gets out, slams the car door, stops.

Be very quiet, he says, finger over lips.
You can hear them.

Them: Spring Peepers. Chorus frogs.

Dad cups hand around ear like an opened
seashell or a leaf folding to the step of an ant.

He tells us spring comes when the peepers do,
that they bring the song to raise the green
out of the ground.

Inside, he folds his cheeks.

This is how fish give kisses, he says before
puckering his mustached mouth vertical,
holding his inside-face between his teeth,

and moving lips together, apart.
Together, apart.

The peepers outside continue to move.
Each closed mouth a chime. Each belly-breath
a beat.

One on top of one on top of one.
Notes overlaying like stones on stones, logs
criss-crossed, trickle of rain.

Rest, says dad. He ties his face in the middle,
figure-eights his lips, and kisses my forehead
like the fishes do.


Carrie George is a poet, photographer, and MFA candidate at the Northeast Ohio MFA program. She is the current graduate fellow for the Wick Poetry Center in Kent, OH, where she teaches poetry to people of all ages and backgrounds. Her work has appeared in Scribendi, Spectrum Literary Journal, and Grub Street and is forthcoming in Gordon Square Review. You can find her at www.carriegeorge.blog.

Fall 2023