by Natalie Eleanor Patterson

I told Hope it felt like all the cells
in my body had turned over & died.
So now they multiply: evenings I crave
red meat; mornings, egg yolk & candlewax.
Your voice through the phone presses its finger
into the soft hollow on my right hip.
Two hundred miles from you, I go sweaty
to bed, wake up rain-darkened & fertile.
The trees grow thick with distances & you say
you’re on the lookout for signs & wonders:
songbirds, damselfly, strains of old music.
September is wet & still hot. Smell of apples.
Taking you between my teeth. I see now,
why people leave their lives for this.

Natalie Eleanor Patterson is a poet, editor, and instructor with an MFA in poetry from Oregon State University. She is the author of the chapbook Plainhollow (dancing girl press, 2022) and the editor of Dream of the River (Jacar Press, 2021), and has work featured in Sinister Wisdom, CALYX, South Florida Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She is Managing Editor of Jacar Press and a PhD student in poetry. Find her at poetnatalie.com.