Erin Elizabeth Smith
Tessellations

His mother sends pecans that neither of us can eat.
The jelly jar sits, blue and unopened, and glints.

For Christmas, I give him maps of the colonies —
New York endless as a cornfield,

Rhode Island nicked into the country like a flaw.
His thumbs crawl the rivers, the towns yet to be framed.

There is sadness to all these places without names —
mollies that devour their only spawn.

Through our window, the sun congeals
while the grass trembles on its wet knees.

The day seems to hum like a dishwasher on rinse.
Outside the wind bays. So ominous. So sweet.