Take a porch with a girl on it playing the cello,
some weeds that need to be yanked up
next to the Japanese maple. Maybe
she has a crush on her landlord, sexy in spite
of the nervous tic that scares people off.
In August the heat can get wicked,
the sidewalk littered with empty nips.
Bach isn’t right for this neighborhood. Don’t listen
too hard. Think instead of a female cardinal’s never-
bright-enough red, how she flies her best anyway.
Frannie Lindsay is the author of six books of poetry, most recently The Snow’s Wife (CavanKerry, 2020). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She has taught workshops on grief and trauma at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. She is also a classical pianist.
