by Dina Strasser

I want to be a cider house. 
I want to be drunk and hold the apples of generations.

I want to be a chicken coop because
one side must be fully paned
fully open to any light. 

I want to be a potato cellar.
Warm, long and low. 
A house for people
cut off at the knees . 

I want to be 
nowhere near the manse.

I want
to seem to serve singular 
and unlinked
out in the rape fields,
horses pacing in the hot walker in the morning mist
as if alone. 

I want to be an old log corn crib.
Cradling the seeds to sleep.
Arms wider than my feet, to shed the rain.


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Dina Strasser teaches English to K-12 students who speak other languages. Dina serves as a reader for LongLeaf Review and the ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment) Journal of Oxford University.