3 Poems by Chelsea Dingman

53 Degrees North, 113 Degrees West

Only the hares walk on water

here. A layer of ice 

between water & air. The difference

between latitude & longitude: a half

circle. Wedded to air. Imaginary

line, I follow the edge of the lake.

It’s possible my brother is alive.

Wherever broken, the parts reap

new hooks. Half-moons stacked 

in the field. The dark climbing the sky. 

I don’t like the word battle. Addiction,

invisible. Who’s to say where the body 

becomes glass? Where the field hid

the horses? I used to know where we burned 

all but the barbed wire fences after

our father died. My brother shot 

the horses rather than starve them.

I tended the field because I needed

a place. I walk now, unsure

how far I am from the hundredth

meridian. What had my father said

when he left that last day? Nothing

you do will make any difference. I went home

anyway. The doors, snowed shut. My mother,

floating facedown in the bath. A man

I don’t know standing over her. A sheet 

hanging over the door. The dog,

gutted in the foyer. I walk to the edge

of the woods & it isn’t war

I walk away from, but the wound

shining in my brother. The boy, grown

into a bullet. The birch trees, birdless. So thin

in this cold. I walk over water

on a footbridge, but I am no 

one’s child. A house beyond the field. I walk

to the door. Snow over the mat.

The windows, black. Clouds that hover

convince me this place is familiar. I walk 

around back. A purple finch stands

in the snow. On the front line. Listening.

The wind backfires. The sky pulls east.

Nowhere is the past not present. Not the detail

or the devil. Just wind cutting circles 

in the snow. The day lacking a door. Water

in the distance, the only place

I’ve been seen since my brother 

cut the hearts from the horses 

to keep his hands warm. 

*

Should the Trees be Our Only Witnesses

The snow, one-winged. I have trusted 

so few things. 

Girl after girl survives a snowfall. 

It can’t snow forever, my mother said. I take my daughter

outside. Pull her in a red sled

over the fields. Need, sometimes,

necessary. We appear

whole. Apart, but continuous. I am trying

to remember if I left

a door unlocked earlier. We walk on. The sun

draws jewels on the snow. My daughter shrieks

in delight as geese take flight

from the lake. Frenzied, the snow. The door

in my mind, dark but unlocked. I imagine the key

in the lock. Sure. Turning. I turn

back. The birch trees in a line at the lake’s edge.

Light falling through them. I don’t have proof 

we go on, except that we go on. 

*

In Snow & Salt

I came here to live—Yona Harvey

What did you hope for when you returned here? ………………..To bury my grief.

When was the last time you spoke to your mother? ……………………..In a dream.

What do you see when you close your eyes? ………………………..The woods. My daughter, antlered.

What is she doing?……………………………………………………………… Running from fire.

What did the fire take? ……………………………………………………….My father. My mother’s love. 

Who keeps handing you their rage? ………………………….. My brother, his lighter lost in the snow.

What secrets does the snow hold?…………………………………… Bridges. Trees. Ash. Salt.

How old were you when you loved yourself?……………………Eight dark rings. 

What did you do when you first arrived? …………………………….Set my mother on fire.

What did you find?……………………………………………………………………My grief, waiting.

Why do you run everyday? …………………………………………………..As punishment.

Why do you deserve punishment? …………………………………I let the fire near. 

Why did you get close enough to be hurt? ………………………Because the dead are everywhere. 

Why do you fear your memories?………………They bulleted through me. Left me emptied of sky.

Did they have your permission? ……………………………I asked the body for a door.

What did you hope for in coming back here? ……………………..Light snow. 

What is the last thing you said to your daughter? …………………………..I said, please.

What is the last thing you said to your mother? …………………..I said, forever isn’t a place.

What would you say to your younger self?…………………………………You will find love.

What is the shape of your pain? …………………………………………………………O.

Chelsea Dingman’s first book, Thaw, was chosen by Allison Joseph to win the National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press, 2017). Her second poetry collection, Through a Small Ghost, won The Georgia Poetry Prize (University of Georgia Press, 2020). She is also the author of the chapbook, What Bodies Have I Moved (Madhouse Press, 2018). Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.