Humans

Maria Hummel

How many centuries before the mountain admires our skyscrapers?

How many radios do we need for the ocean to seize them?

Scatter me and scatter me, and I will last, says the dandelion seed.

Seek the softest underneath, says the millipede.

This, too, is a cliff in wind, says the pigeon.

And the snow melts to liquid that isn’t rain, but rises like it. And the wildfires remind us our houses are flowers of air. And the sowing begins with another belch of the engine.

Inhabitants of my gut, my nose, my eyebrows, I will end one day, did you know that? Please don’t leave. Sometimes my only hope is that, together, we could feed something.

Maria Hummel is the author of the poetry collection House and Fire, winner of the APR/Honickman Prize, and four novels, most recently Lesson in Red (Counterpoint, 2021). She lives in Vermont.