Nancy Holt Wright

What I Failed to Notice

Sometimes in August, the heat demands
that your brain shut down, that nothing more
should occur to you, even if it is only that
the squirrels and crows seem to be having
a cocktail party in your backyard, the squirrels
like frat boys, the crows observing with mild
disdain, even if it is only to ponder a small

microwave that the neighbors have placed
on the mangled stump of their fallen cotton-
wood, where it shimmers and remains for
a week. The sun glares in August and distorts
your vision: maybe the crows are hawks, maybe
the microwave is a box. Tension pulses in
the bones behind your ears, and so why under

this weight would it ever occur to you to notice
the sole chickadee who fluttered down this
morning, who took one seed to the top of
the hickory and then returned for one more,
so tiny that just two seeds will sustain him.

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Nancy Holt Wright lives in Fort Collins, CO, where she teaches writing at Colorado State University. She has recently completed her first poetry collection, I Pick up Stones. It took longer than expected, as she is easily distracted by the crows in her backyard and the constant Colorado sun. She holds an MFA from Eastern Washington University and has been published most recently in Crab Creek Review and 3rd Wednesday.