Delivery
Birds and shadows of birds cross the yard,
and the yard is everything now.
The wasps have moved in to build a nest
in the old picnic bench.
I like their busy work.
The buzz and sound of distant planes has become
the whirring of the earth.
I am aging myself with my face to the sun.
Warm cells decay and I will look more like my mother
every day. I did things today I’d meant for so long.
You are here, finally, coming up the walk to see
my unfinished ways, my animal appearance.
I will come halfway to meet you.
And you will drop your burden
just a few moments sooner than had I stayed
young inside the house.
Maude Lustig lives in Seattle and is a recent graduate of Whitman College. She was the humor editor for her college’s paper, The Wire, and published a personal essay on loneliness for their annual magazine, Circuit. This is the first time her poetry has been published.