A hummingbird rests on a slip of hibiscus branch
when I carry eggshells to the far corner of the yard.
I can turn around and look back through glass doors
into a living room crammed with banjos and paintings.
How lucky we are to have been chosen for this experiment
—to be able to parse shades of salmon-pink
and follow the notes that bounce through the whorls of our ears.
I replace the plastic lid of the compost bin, which closes off-angle
because I missed some detail when constructing it.
The imperfection niggles, then wiggles away and joins
all the other messy, off-kilter things swimming in my peripheral
vision. A woman somewhere said emotions are fish
and we are the pond. With slow paces
I settle this body of water and watch feelings shimmer
around aquatic grasses, memories dart at the edges,
worries lurk in the muck, and schools of snapshots
slip by so quickly I can’t count them.
More wriggle in, and I expand, making room.
Sarah Carleton writes poetry, edits fiction, plays the banjo, and knits obsessively in Tampa, Florida. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Nimrod, Valparaiso, Rattle, ONE ART, and As It Ought to Be. Sarah’s poems have received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and she is a finalist for the 2023 John Ridland Poetry Prize. Her first collection, Notes from the Girl Cave, was published in 2020 by Kelsay Books.