Altachadh Laidhe

—Scottish Gaelic bed-going prayer


You woke to blue, the color of tourmaline
and then the storm at sea, how it dimmed

everything to gray like an old film.
If it were slipping away, this would be a warning.

You woke to magnolia, the sun and then hot
sand, the color of samara, those dried seeds of the

elm come fall, the weather baked on your skin
like that first summer on the Cape before

everything had happened, when you were
still waiting, the waters settling, a still boat.

You woke to green, the fields in Pennsylvania
not quite verdant because of the ash, almost

loden or shale, your mother calling
your name from afar but near—when

you had a mother and father still, the long acres
appeared in front of you, asked what will you do.

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Molly Kugel is the author of The Forest of the Suburbs (Five Oaks 2015). Her book, Groundcover (Tolsun 2022), and chapbook, fo gheasaibh (dancing girl press 2022), are forthcoming. Her poems have appeared most recently or are forthcoming in Bennington Review, Calyx, Mid-American Review, Cider Press Review, and Josephine Quarterly. She recently completed a PhD in Literary Studies at the University of Denver. She is the ecology editor for Cordella magazine.