Tag Archives: Liz Ann Young

my second daughter refused to come out at birth

Each time labor moved forward,

she retreated back:

waited through the ice storm,

sliced branches off every tree in the yard

whether they bore fruit or not.

Cross five cleared fields.

Cross battlegrounds.

Mustard blossoms,

goldenrods. Fight

another farmer’s volunteers,

old posts lean south, brittling

remains of electric fencing,

overgrown gate twice as tall as stone walls.

****

We plied her here,

the first snow drops hanging tiny white heads.

So close to the ground.

We raised them up in villages to sing to the oncoming warmth—

spring peepers to hold,

small in her hand,

wet and hiding,

adding their verse to the chorus

listen little one,

we are calling only to you.

She waited.

****

I beat a rotting stump,

hollowed it out with my teeth,

my braid coming loose,

wrote song after song for her,

called now and now.

Taught the crickets.

Screamed,

keened

until the crows pleaded with me enough.

Posted signs every sixth tree,

drove nails into trunks,

bark growing over my words

before I even turned around.

****

We moved the ferns outside,

added hooks to soffit,

green arms unfurling by the dozen

reaching towards their first rain storm.

I waited.

We milled logs for her,

built vegetable beds for her,

poured dirt for her,

gathered mulch for her.

Wore worry lines in the floor.

Find root stock—

could still be growing any drupe,

too early to tell—

grafted plums or pears or peaches.

Too early to tell.

Asparagus crowns lay in the mud room

waiting, drying up more each day,

too early. And she stayed

to tell.

Primrose oil, figure eights for her.

In through the nose, out through the mouth for her.

Raspberry tea,

walk the edges of the forest,

stack firewood for her.

Beat rugs on clotheslines.

****

In our fields

black thorns guard the apple trees

who look the same from the road

but stab your hand when you reach, drawing back too late.

---

Liz Ann Young (she/her) lives on a small farm with dogs, cats, chickens, and some humans too, on land originally inhabited by the Haudenosaunee and Susquehannock peoples. She is working towards her PhD at Binghamton University and received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the longstanding poetry editor of Atlas + Alice and her work has been published by Black Heart, Big Muddy, Tinderbox Poetry, and San Pedro RiverReview, among others.

ode to an old farmhouse in the rain

I will find the ax head in your crawl space

and polish its rust.

I will trim the rot from your beams for you.

On hot, close nights at your tilted doorways

I can feel how you have ached for spires

to pierce the flooding sky.

How many storms have thundered your roof,

crashing sheets and loose limbs and torn off leaves?

You waited. Let them rage.

Dark, moisture-buckled floorboards catch my toes

but I forgive nail pops,

wrap jade-speckled pothos around their heads.

For two hundred years

your cedar shakes have watched goldenrod fields,

monarchs who visit only to fly away.

No one asked, but you have odes to herringbone,

tools to fix your plinth.

You tell ghosts until the living listen.

You will creak and groan though men try to sleep.

They will wake afraid

while you dream of transoms. Of rib vaults. Arches.

Silence paints ceilings for you.

Hands have moved your walls through lathe, through plaster.

The mud outside always finds a way in.

You never chose beige flowered wallpaper

or the constant water dragging

strong, stacked rocks from foundation to moss.

If the rain dries up

I will slice painted window frames,

let breeze slide east to west.

I will cry. I will level you.

---

Liz Ann Young (she/her) lives on a small farm with dogs, cats, chickens, and some humans too, on land originally inhabited by the Haudenosaunee and Susquehannock peoples. She is working towards her PhD at Binghamton University and received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the longstanding poetry editor of Atlas + Alice and her work has been published by Black Heart, Big Muddy, Tinderbox Poetry, and San Pedro RiverReview, among others.

missed miscarriage

Last night in my dreams—

a man’s hands around my neck,

me, pleading with my daughter

to run away and save me,

but no one else was there.

****

Last year the cat left a bunny,

dark as spilled oil

and one blond foot,

dropped on the sheets between us.

Then he brought another,

smooth like honey,

black-tipped ears

hid underneath the couch.

Ears and feet and fuzzy butts

appeared in every room.

He found them—

the color of burnt august grass

between backed-in sedans

that need a jump every morning,

or the color of standing dead larch

behind rusted compressors for always-leaking tires,

skies without light pollution,

the two-toned frankenstein cars

of montana towns without sidewalks.

My cat brought them inside.

A friend told me:

they do that when you’re pregnant.

****

Weeks later, when he stopped,

I thought nothing of it.

The bunnies had grown too big,

wriggled from his grasp

before he could drag them in

and left him spitting fur off his tongue

the orange of a wildfire-smoked sky,

of octobers in this place,

leaves gathered around tires,

extra jackets.

Then I saw a small one hiding

behind the log for the trailer hitch,

tiny ears peeking around bark.

I saw it again the next day.

And the next.

Brand new, smaller than my hand.

And the ultrasound said

no heartbeat.

---

Liz Ann Young (she/her) lives on a small farm with dogs, cats, chickens, and some humans too, on land originally inhabited by the Haudenosaunee and Susquehannock peoples. She is working towards her PhD at Binghamton University and received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the longstanding poetry editor of Atlas + Alice and her work has been published by Black Heart, Big Muddy, Tinderbox Poetry, and San Pedro River Review, among others.