Season of salmonberry then	currant
raspberry
	      thimbleberry		cherry 		almost
blackberry

of ants in the kitchen

of napping while she naps
writing undercover

the blanket naked 

				                 (its crimson sleeve
				                 whirling in the wash)

On this morning’s walk with Josie
a dog named Sedona
a thousand whys

Summer’s unboundaries pour us &

I wonder if my neighbor is angry
or worse.

The ants come marching in
the kitchen windows

Out back where Peggy’s ashes 
settled at Easter

her pale pink roses
trumpeting.

Will this be how I teach Josie 
about death—or when I wipe the ants up
with a sponge?

		                                (We had an unusually wet spring.)

The neighbor’s irritation marches over
the soft pink tones of his wife
and daughter.

			                      (She lived in this house 				
                                                 almost all her life.)

Each day the sun shines, the trees ripple,
I walk all the way to the park,
I am holy

				             (weeks 
				              I prayed restore my bellows
				              feared
				              my life retracted)

so what escapes now is let in
unquestioned,
like a breath

weaving
alveoli				     i l o v e a l (l)
interstitial			     i  startle in it
heal 

	     rasp
		       thimb
			          sal
				          straw
					               black


sirens bagpiping up
				             (imagine Josie furrowing
				              I hope someone is okay)
 
to be spared for another rinse
another tumble
tongue bunched with fruit
from her palm
 

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Deirdre Lockwood’s debut collection, An Introduction to Error, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in September 2025. Her work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Yale Review, Poetry Northwest and elsewhere.