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from softwood

julia doughty

i am proclaiming the best & the worst
all the same
automatic sprinkler system
unforeseen revulsion

a body turning into the second half of its story

one life becoming another

wind taking place in pine

why have such ideals

the mountaintop

getting up there & it’s a brief time
to stay & see the panorama

and still thrills come in the gullies

a summer fig

forever and forever
but not forever young

and we were going to be together
we were going to figure it out
enough

even the stone house
showing signs of wear and tear

temperance isn’t a law
but could be a personal moral code

the baby gives up paying attention
to what’s inside the corral

wild horse

i veer off all my learning
the words scatter out, slip
off the ground
i was taught to stand on

the baby lets go & hangs
in her tentative standing suspension

***

crinkled loveland water reservoir lapping laughing into
sand shore algae free duckland
bill back under wing & scrubbing
granite hill seams uplifted compressions
like streams

***

bacterial cells multiply
at relatively the same rate—
we average the rates
your fingerprint, the snowflake
these bountiful storm clouds

***

the art scourged at the opening
by the vindictive one

it’s possible i hadn’t really paid attention
in the proper way
these aberrant behaviors of hers
probably genetic or neural

talk talk talk
but i can really listen now

but next time i’m getting warm tea
not iced water with my dinner

listen—la neige la nuit of the baby’s sleeping sounds