Visit

They cross the threshold
of our humming house & we fold our wings, falling

drowsy as geese, nuptial
in the window’s evening flare. Your parents now:

at the couch, settling
the floor, shrugging their ghosts to the steaming tiles.

I could rise, fruit
in boxes mellowing the air behind. I could

be gone, not
sit, speaking, with the ones

you love, at our hearth,
brooding to dreams silent as the balm

of an apple, longevity
alighted, close, a roost, breathing, lying, at hand.

Kjerstin Kauffman

Kjerstin Kauffman

Kjerstin Kauffman is a poet, essayist, and mother of five living in Spokane, WA. Her work appears in or is forthcoming from Gulf Coast, The Hopkins Review, Gingerbread House, 32 Poems, The Cresset, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Kjerstin Kauffman

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Author: Kjerstin Kauffman

Kjerstin Kauffman is a poet, essayist, and mother of five living in Spokane, WA. Her work appears in or is forthcoming from Gulf Coast, The Hopkins Review, Gingerbread House, 32 Poems, The Cresset, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere.