Standing in My Mother’s Back Yard, Waterloo, Indiana

Artist: Cassandra Baliga

--After James Wright

Grass is dead in patches. Squirrels chatter, acrobatically
walk telephone wires.
I am pining for something
I invented. Birds sing and chase
each other,
cutting red and black streaks through the air.
In the time since I have been here last
many of the old apple tree’s limbs have grown
tired and cracked,
hanging to the ground after wind, lightning.
The trunk is still
spackled with the same moss. The few limbs that are alive
have knotted green buds that wait
for sun.
These empty years,
I have been here,
waiting for myself.