Taylor Hamann Los

Ghosts in Late August

Another night with owls and wooden gates swinging
toward every breeze and this fairy child testing the weight
of her wings in my womb. I haven’t slept in weeks.

We make love with the lights on: you against me
against sheets we keep saying we’ll replace and never do.
I open the windows and crickets tumble inside.

I remember the story of a girl who tied a lily stem
to her ribs as she lay dying on the forest floor.
When they went to dig her up the next spring,

they found a meadow of blood-stained flowers.
I ask if you remember this story too, but you only
brush away the wings littering the dresser.

Tomorrow will bring more of the same. Maybe we’ll find
that field of blood-stained flowers and then head home
just to leave the lights on again. We won’t change the sheets. 

We’ll wonder how many times a sparrow can beat
against the window before her heart fails, why
the promise of light brings her over and over again.

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Taylor Hamann Los holds an MLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is currently an MFA student at Lindenwood University. Her poetry has appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Parentheses Journal and Split Rock Review, among others. She lives with her family and two cats in Wisconsin. You can find her on Twitter (@taylorhamannlos) and at taylorhamannlos.wordpress.com.