Field Note on Gaston Bachelard’s 

            THE POETICS OF SPACE

The wildflower book says the petals 

             of Achillea millefolium 

can be crushed to powder and applied 

             to wounds to stop bleeding. 

A patch of dormant yarrow lives and waits 

             for winter’s passing 

to the west of my cabin. 

             The Navajo called it life’s medicine. 

Bullet wounds. Shrapnel wounds.

             December chill. Barren trees 

hug the hill behind and do not shade 

             my space from the bright afternoon 

sun. My desk faces south 

             below a window framing the lake 

as I flip through the pages of the book 

             then set it aside to begin arranging 

my things as though I am home—

             though not. My hands

find first the bag of my mother’s ashes. 

             To stop the bleeding, I set the velvet bag 

next to the book, hear dogs barking 

             from the cabin nearby, 

piercing the stolid silence in these Appalachian 

             foothills, pray 

because I need to, no other reason,

             [wounds don’t heal; they age]

crush the words inside my mouth 

             so I can taste the things they name. 

I’ve spoken them before; 

             now she can hear me. 

Bullet wound. Shrapnel wound. 

             December chill, the barren trees.

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Kimberly Ann Priest

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Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of Slaughter the One Bird, finalist for the American Best Book Awards, as well as chapbooks The Optimist Shelters in Place, Parrot Flower, and Still Life. Winner of the New American Press 2019 Heartland Poetry Prize, her work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Salamander, Slipstream, The Berkeley Poetry Review, EcoTheo, Borderlands and other journals. She is an associate poetry editor for the Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry and assistant professor at Michigan State University. 

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