Angie Macri ​
​

Grain

​Out of the claw, the girl prefers talon,
that reminding her of prayer,
prefers nail, like part of a building,
the barn where she likes to watch
light fall through the walls, to breathe
the dust of rafters, posts, beams
that, with a century of animals and straw,
have mixed to form a floor
softer than seems possible in a structure
so large or old. The wood
has no grain or moisture anymore
as if it has become stone to bear weight.
In the crib, corn slips in trinities of gold,
all that sun brought to each point
below the loft
where she never climbs on pain
of death should she disobey.
Look at the ladder, each rung,
nailed into exact place.

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Angie Macri is the author of Sunset Cue (Bordighera), winner of the Lauria/Frasca Poetry Prize, and Underwater Panther (Southeast Missouri State University), winner of the Cowles Poetry Book Prize. Recent poems appear/are forthcoming in The Common, Moon City Review, and Tupelo Quarterly. An Arkansas Arts Council fellow, she lives in Hot Springs.