Spell

When is leaving justified?
One-part eggshell to two-parts love?
Two-parts eggshell to one-part love?

None of the above?
My head is full of noise.
My head is a hung jury.

My head is a congregation
seated on hard wood benches
while outside the Chinese maple

is on fire and worth a sidelong glance.
Who can resist? The urge,
irresistible—

I cast my eyes knowing
I could not look back.
Those leaves escaping

the tree, sparking the air
made me think of lightning bugs
when I hadn’t thought

of lightning bugs
since Bloomington
since the rental on Bender Road.

I raced my sisters
across that dark yard.
I wanted to capture

all the light.
It wasn’t a secret.
There were people

who drove down our road at night
to dump unwanted puppies
from car windows.

How could they do that?
And yet.
How could I?

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Cindy Veach is the author of Her Kind (CavanKerry Press, forthcoming 2021), Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press), named a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a ‘Must Read’ by The Massachusetts Center for the Book, and the chapbook, Innocents (Nixes Mate). Her poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Series, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Michigan Quarterly Review and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Phillip Booth Poetry Prize and the Samuel Allen Washington Prize. Cindy is co-poetry editor of Mom Egg Review. www.cindyveach.com