that once she lived near tides, she wouldn’t need the sound of peepers. How odd that hiking talus made her crave the open field. Orca dove off shore, while farther east, fireflies swam through wintergreen. Beneath sassafras her son formed bowls from river mud, skipped shale across the shallows. She imagined twelve months of her favorite season would be enough. Northwest summers, a map of Aprils blooming. Spring comes early here. It helps her forgive the icicle’s absence. Is it the blue of the Steller’s jay or the cardinal’s red that she loves best? She asks the holly to help her conjure Ohio’s magenta blossoms—the Staghorn sumac’s velvet spike.
