Entanglement

Late March leans into the yearning

body of spring.

But this day still the kitchens smell

of substantial soups like bean and potato

with rosemary.

 

I stand at sunrise

in front of the original

rough orange metal in Indiana.

L like a sentry

O slanted to the right

like a screw asking

to be tightened

V a spade ready to dig

E a crown on its side.

 

The letters bleed

rust down white concrete.

Signs say No Climbing

below muddy sneaker prints.

 

On days like this, old leaves gust

across sidewalks. They click

like a woman in heels

after a stumble.

 

At home my garage-sale writing desk boasts

70’s psychedelic LO contact paper.

  VE

In our kitchen

tea with sugar and milk

tastes like your childhood.

 

You tell me London’s is painted red.

Blue on the sides

and in the holes

Black base

Busy street.

 

You at noon

so our sun

can fold its hands

under my morning heart

and lift me to you. There.

We make a meal

out of aching air.

 

–Helen Townsend (Marion County)

Helen Townsend lives in Indianapolis. When she’s not writing poetry, she works as a TB Nurse Case Manager at the Marion County Public Health Department. Her poems have appeared in Flying Island, the Philadelphia Inquirer, on the Zocalo and Punchnels websites, and in two anthologies, Reckless Writing 2012 and Bearers of Distance: Poems by Runners. Helen also actively posts new work on her blog, wordkinked.blogspot.com.

Indiana Humanities is celebrating National Poetry Month by sharing a poem from an Indiana poet every day in April (hand-selected by Indiana Poet Laureate George Kalamaras). Check in daily to see who is featured next!