We Already Have Sad at Home
But I want to purchase my Sad
fresh off the shelf.
I want to tuck it into my basket
between the eggs and the 89-cent mini pumpkin.
I want my Sad certified organic
but also on sale.
I want my Sad in a cardboard box
with crosswords on the back.
I want the stupid baby in the stupid cart
to stop waving at me.
I want to be the stupid baby
in the stupid cart.
I want everyone to get out of my way
because this shopping cart was made for speed.
I want to be the girl at Trader Joe’s with her puffed sleeves
and tragic eyes and velvet bow.
I want to shoplift a little Sad so I can look like her.
I want to be a beautiful crier.
I want my tears to fall like vegetable mist
and not like potatoes.
I want everyone in the supermarket
to have a crush on me.
I want the cashier
to ask if I’m okay.
I want him to say, the ladies blocking the pasta aisle think you’re hot.
And also, this bag of shredded cheese is on the house.
I want to hear, attention all shoppers! Corporate has to know:
Who is the young woman looking so tortured but also sexy in the deli?
I want to say, I’m sorry for crying
over whole unspilled cartons of almond milk.
I want to run home and tear the plastic
off my brand-new Sad with my teeth.
I want to tell everyone at the potluck
I baked it myself.
I want to scoff: Why would anyone spend good money on canned Sad
when you could make it yourself at half the cost?
I want to retract my earlier statement: if you don’t like the Sad
you have at home, store-bought is fine.
Bumble Bee Survey in a Field of Creeping Thistle
bees have come to trouble the thistles,
bees that sleep in the ground like the dead.
last January, I sat by a pale window
and translated a poem about thistles, badly.
almohada de cansados I called the exhausting pillow.
I might sleep on a bed of thistles
if my skin did not itch at the memory of their sting.
what do bees dream of? for that matter, what do I?
a crackling in my head when I wake
like the vibrations of a hundred tiny wings.
now I crouch in a field of tall plants
and count the flowers in a one-by-one meter plot.
Cirsium arvense, I speak aloud;
no curses, only ancient words
fermenting on my tongue.
translation: this quadrat is full to bursting with thistle.
my knuckles are on fire where I swung
my hands so carelessly.
above my head, heavy-bodied bumbles
jam their pollen-dusted faces
down among the purple blooms.
sky gathers like a skirt full of beech nuts.
blue deepening to violet, blossom bobbing
on a swollen mass of bracts,
rain to drive the bees back to their nests,
or to the bristling shelter of a leaf.
these bees won’t die if they sting,
and still, they choose peace.
prickles scald my thighs as I push
forward, racing the storm,
breath crashing against
the low music of wind.
the bees are humming.
so am I.
Migratory Bird
sometimes when I look at you,
asleep beside the dwindling fireplace
while snowflakes drift
as soft as cherry blooms,
I find myself lingering
on the fresh-sprung tendril
of your smile,
and I am suddenly saddened
by the thought of spring,
when surely the flight instinct
will seize my body
once again
ABOUT:
Ella Shively is a writer and naturalist from Wisconsin. She graduated from Northland College with degrees in Natural Resources and Writing in 2021, after which she embarked on a career as a salamander chauffeur and bumble bee botanizer. She is currently working toward her MFA in Poetry at Cornell University. Her writing has been published in RockPaperPoem, Bracken, Runestone Journal, and elsewhere. You can find her on Instagram @shivelywrites.
EDITOR'S SONG PAIRING: re:BORN -- crashing:DOWN