Outside the door
of our childhood
Hilary Sallick
It was time to go
to sweep the house
to load the car
but we were staying out of the way
not helping to get things done
There on the mossy
floor of the woods
we did scientific research
We turned over a rock another beside it
In the moist dirt living creatures
tender magenta with limbs and faces
were trying not to be picked up
With our gentlest fingers
we touched them
Hilary Sallick is the author of Asking the Form (Cervena Barva Press, 2020) and Winter Roses (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Empty House Press, Thimble Literary Magazine, Panoply, The Inflectionist Review, and in other journals. She teaches reading and writing to adult learners in Somerville, MA, and she is vice-president of the New England Poetry Club.