Poetry by Lauren Ebright

              Paulo César León Palacios CC




​Out Across the Orchard


the three diamond dots in the distance is where they are playing football 
& they aren’t concerned with C.T.E because the game is a sigh at the end 
of a weeks’ worth of held breath. i don’t know 
that i want my son growing up under that cross on the hillside, 
over his shoulder as lit as gatsby but not so gay.
​
the orchard rows passing like flip book animation, like falling backwards 
through generations; the time it took to be seen over the top of the apple crate fences. 
i wonder about the first boy to press his fingers into the soil 
needing that seed to take for the season & then the season after it, growing 
& after that that boy became a man who pressed his fingers
into other places, crouched within the orchard,
but he didn’t need her as much. i bet he let his own son play football 
& i bet they both bowed their heads when passing that cross 
& near the porch looking out toward the orchard i bet you could see his wife 
in the lilac drape of evening. she snuffs out her cigarette; pressing too hard, 
liking the burn on her fingertips.


​

Lauren Ebright is a writer living and forgetting to breathe deeply in the Pacific Northwest. Her poetry has appeared in Permafrost and Cirque, while her short story There Are Wild Parrots in Pasadena placed as a finalist in the Black River Chapbook Competition. She has been Pushcart nominated. 

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