Hemlock

The morning after an immense hemlock has been cut down, light fills our cottage living room through a once-blocked window as if a murderer has ungripped a throat. The window feels such happiness that now it wishes it were bigger. Daydreams fill the window with a vision of Victorian greenhouses. So much glass. So much permission. The window says to itself, Thresh. Hold. But our little dog lives in the room and can’t see any squirrels without the hemlock. The long day inside grows longer, like a mountain of rubber tires burning from now on.

Landon Godfrey is a poet and artist. She is the author of Second-Skin Rhinestone-Spangled Nude Soufflé Chiffon Gown (Cider Press Review, 2011), selected by David St. John for the Cider Press Book Award, and two chapbooks, In the Stone (RAPG-funded, 2013) and Spaceship (Somnambulist Tango Press, 2014). She co-edits, designs, and publishes Croquet, a letterpress postcard broadside poetry journal. Born and raised in Washington, DC, she now lives in Black Mountain, NC. http://www.croquetpress.com