Night Falls Early on the Hilltop
Eucalyptus in cast iron
boiled bones
onion, thyme
*
A peregrine falcon
on a dead pine
looks out
to Morro Rock
a sleeping volcano
in motion as I write
*
The storm only moments away
a storm
always a moment away
always a moment away
*
Once, topless
in the lake
an eagle swooped
down beside me
I screamed
and held both breasts
*
And once
after my son grew teeth
he bit down on the bud
and tore away
*
Night falls early
on the hilltop—
a holy shadow
*
I burn Paulo Santo
watch its purple center
disappear
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Kathryn de Lancellotti’s chapbook Impossible Thirst was published with Moon Tide Press in June 2020. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a former recipient of the George Hitchcock Memorial Poetry Prize. Her poems and other works have appeared in Thrush, Rust + Moth, The American Journal of Poetry, Quarterly West, and others. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada University and resides on the Central Coast, California, with her family.