By Katelyn Delvaux
I don’t mean we chew through it
like so much concrete chiseled
from the path, but a spoonful
each morning stirred in
to keep us regular. A helping
added to the sandbags of our bellies,
the weight locking history in place
because if we are still,
the world will churn
around its center.
Cabin Aubade
I ate a peach one morning,
the juice becoming rivers
until my elbows gleamed
with sugar like new freckles.
The soft fur halting my tongue
as I slurped the meat from its stone.
There is a beauty to fruit
eaten outside, like dying
in your childhood
home. Past the porch,
turkeys picked their way through woods,
wearing the bald browns of summer.
Modest in their somber pecking,
thankful for the season—
blessed with grubs and daylight.
I loosed the pit, sailing
through the trees until it landed
among the mossy bottom.
Feathers scraped bark,
and they were gone.
Katelyn Delvaux’s poetry has appeared in such publications as Split Lip, Menacing Hedge, Slice, and formercactus. She currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri where she teaches composition and literature. In between grading, she also serves on the poetry staff for Rivet. Katelyn’s poems have received multiple nominations for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, while her scholarly work has earned her fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Poetry Foundation.