Megan J. Arlett
Summer, Roosevelt County
Out of the spring winds comes the heat.
Because our days are languid,
we spend the afternoon practicing
creation.
We are lucky to be in love in a place like this.
Lucky to lie together
naked beneath the ceiling fan
I have bought frames for the art.
In six months perhaps I’ll finally hang them
on the walls.
Finding beauty here has been hard.
My job is to convince myself it exists.
Like the wildflowers sprung
from the rain.
Or, when the hail made ghosts of the streets.
Or the emaciated dog I brought home.
She licks my face in the mornings
and chewed the end of the broom.
I fed her until her ribs
disappeared from sight, finally.
A magic trick.
Megan J. Arlett reads “Summer, Roosevelt County”
Megan J. Arlettwas born in the UK, grew up in Spain, and now lives in New Mexico. The recipient of two Academy of American Poets prizes and the phoebe nonfiction prize, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2019, Best New British and Irish Poets, Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, The Sun, and Virginia Quarterly Review.