My list says water herbs & roses bathe in how
small you are & this is not defeat says fold
clothes & that is not so bad a pleasing kind of curse
like hose-water when I gush mint & mud-wet-rush
off my boots or when you hold fennel & cinnamon
under my nose tell me to examine the shape of star anise
so I can more cleverly drink & when your lavender oil
eases my churning guts so finally I dream
away this June night I lent to an ice-silt lake where
phones come second to workings of breath & word & in
the dissolving scent of rain a father held his daughter as she slipped through
his arms like the color of water
& a family cried & yelled seizure & tapped hard
their cold black devices & when I stopped
their dog ran to my untrained hands & more cars
formed behind mine & bells rung as if a train had gone & passed
this daughter into hereafter & the static
turned my mind to a flint of burn-dead
leaf & lint as the car engines fell distant
for the dumb wind in all those birch & red alder
black & blue spruce & always the blank tundra so close
& never

Tor Strand received the Mari Sandoz Emerging Writer award and is a forthcoming Fishtrap Fellow. He has been published in several literary journals including CIRQUE, CatheXis Northwest Press, Caustic Frolic, Projector Magazine and others. He has also collaborated with professional muralists and enjoys the artistic crossover in creative mediums.