Kathryn de Lancellotti

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

*

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
 
 

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.