The earth was made from wire
wrapped around itself, light
enough to hang on a small limb
or for a child to carry across
a yard. The child ran with it,
never walking anywhere,
even evenings as cicada swelled
across the woods with voices
of metal, the kind beaten into wings
you could partway see through.
In the child’s grip, the earth
only turned when he fell down
and then with just a slow roll.
The cicada ebbed and flowed
until those raised in cities
complained. How can we sleep?
The child kept the earth close.
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Angie Macri is the author of Sunset Cue, winner of the Lauria / Frasca Poetry Prize, and Underwater Panther, winner of the Cowles Poetry Book Prize. An Arkansas Arts Council fellow, she lives in Hot Springs.
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Kathryn Leonard-Peck graduated from Dartmouth College and Columbia Law School, and is an attorney. She lives on a farm on Martha’s Vineyard with her family. Her poems, plays, and stories have been published in THEMA, Blink Ink, IHRAF Publishes, Auroras & Blossoms/F Point Collective, South Road, and The Stonefence Review. She was the second place winner for the Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing (MVICW) Vineyard Writers Fellowship.
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