by Caitlin Grace McDonnell

As the booms in the distance start,  

the dog darts around the yard in alarm,  

from the flame of the bonfire to the citronella  

flicking on the wood table, to whatever draws  

her under the house with relentless dark  

fascination day after day. The moon’s a sly  

smirk and the night envelops the lake. Can’t  

see the light show, just the trees, huddling  

with concern, birds shrieking, frogs creaking:  

yeah, we told you, yeah, it’s gonna get worse. 

We burn things we want to be free of:  

Patriarchy, screens, self-judgment. What  

happens to ink on paper as it burns?  

What happens to the words? I read  

in Mississippi, they are thinking of training  

dogs to sniff out pregnancy hormones  

in women leaving the state. Boom  

in the distance, dark trees, still lake.  

It is not yet clear what will be asked  

of us. Bug zap in the blue light.  

And what we’re prepared to do. 

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Caitlin Grace McDonnell was a New York TImes Fellow at NYU where she received her MFA. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He poems and essays have been published widely and she has published a chapbook, Dreaming the Tree (2003), and two books, Looking for Small Animals (2012) and Pandemic City (2021). She teaches writing for CUNY and lives in Brooklyn with her daughter.