A snuggery, evolved, Sarah Vap

POETRY

SARAH VAP

A snuggery, evolved
Long was I hugg’d close—long and long.
—Walt Whitman

It’s wooed; my little
hearth’s invaded. That we were the least of them with helicopters

over our apartment every day—then the eviction,

the shittiest landlord. My lilac
summer dress in the car ride through the canyon—charged by the sunset’s orange

to brown—I did feel the two babies then;
I feel one child, right now. In our new house, phosphorous on a match

to mask the previous renters’ smells. Wash the curtains
of dog hair, wash the nest

from the disconsolate chimney. All my darling recombinations
waiting for their place

and I can’t move for bedrest, pelvic rest—
to the mountain where I grew. Where the lake was strapped

behind its glacial dam. Ancient watermarks—

from gigantic blades dragged—wrap the low hills.

Higher, the peaks where that glacier
once calved her bergs—lobes

spread down my parents’ valley;
my childhood’s tributary. But that’s too close

a parallel—fog blessedly over the aquifer:: this remaining baby. And some

rectilinearity, pacified.