HAY LEDGE

By: Stephanie McConnell

To go see my young brother, I must drift

in dreams until I land on our father’s land,

where my brother is still blonde and my fingernails

bleed but his brain is not yet bog. There where

the currency in my pockets turns to compost,

my crows feet fill, and it is always spring.

Last night I dreamt he drove me

through a field of hay, the grill of his car

mowing through gold straw like a skiff

propelled down inky currents

into the river’s warm mouth.

I told him when I die I think

this is how I’ll get to heaven. Little sister

riding shotgun in the late boot stage

of harvest in your brother’s car

is a kind of heaven. As in life,

I was speaking to the muscle

of his neck, curve of his ear, the jut

of his jawbone. Some parts of us are kept

sealed and shut as cellar doors. Hay opened

and flayed around us. He was always closer

to death. Turned, even now, even in

dreams, away.

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Stephanie McConnell is from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Worcester Review, River Heron Review, The Paterson Literary Review, the Under Review, The Dewdrop, BarBar, The Ponder Review, and the Hare’s Paw Literary Journal. She now lives in New England, but still only writes about Pennsylvania.