Enough, Katie Peterson

 Enough

BY KATIE PETERSON

So many forget-me-nots, with their white centers,

scattered, you'd say, if there weren't

so many everywhere, as many as the stars

last night in between the branches

above the porch, behind the house.

Was it an argument or were there just

things they had to say?

I could have faith in so many creatures—

the old setter from the neighbor yard

who follows me around the corner

and no longer, the chick with its new beak

just past breakable whose lighter top feathers

have a bit of flight, any mother bear—

you say things and the next day

it's like they don't matter, we want our faces

to alter though we don't want to get older, neither

do we want to get younger, repetition

with less knowledge is ridiculous,

just ask the Greeks, you get to keep

being a tree but without the branch

that showed the sky your starlike shape?

I don't think so. Steadiness can be useful,

but my loyalty loves a form

that will follow me through changes.

At a diagonal the dark woods

on the back slope have enough space

to walk between, not enough to hide.

He looks into them

and writes notes to his mother, she

looks into them and finds alignment,

or looks for what she wants.

She has a human skeleton on her desk.

He has a protractor. I had wishes

for both of them yesterday

but the weather has become so kindly,

so temperate, I forget what blessings

they don't think they have.

Katie Peterson, "Enough" from The Accounts