Emily Light
Pastoral with Bruxism and Keats
Look, I’m not living
poetry. That panting
is just the dog and no one
has ever called
me their lover.
Not the skunk cabbage,
though my fingers have
smelled of its moisture.
Nor the strawberries
I masticate between
my tongue and upper palate.
There is no poem
in mowing the lawn
on a May afternoon
the barrage of grass gnats
pushing up my nose
while the bees,
still winter thin,
quiver between
the clover.
There was hope for a poem
in my mother teaching me
to make flower crowns
and willow switch bracelets,
but now all I can think of
is Keats’s merciless Faery Child
and how no one has ever
set me on their pacing steed.
Not within the pine tree
groves in Maine,
though my skin was sticky
with their sap.
Just the nameless ache
pulling my teeth
together while I sleep.
Emily Light
Emily Light is a poet, educator, and mother living in northern New Jersey. Her poetry can be found in such journals as Inch, Salt Hill, Cherry Tree, terrain.org, and RHINO, among others.