Emily Patterson

Hope Is a Wildfire

When Canada sends down
its curtain of smoke—rending
the bright June air, 

the sun a smudged coin—
night comes sooner
to my daughter’s window. 

Rocking her to sleep
in the thick haze of heat,
I think of how some things 

only dissipate when you
get close—and that’s a story
I want to tell her, to tell myself, 

even though forests
are still burning down
while the sea level rises. 

Even though the sparrow,
one wing bent, shuddered
and died on our own porch. 

There are so many songs
of loss I’ve yet to sing—
their weight clouding 

my vision. Night wings
toward morning, rises
to its music, even though.

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Emily Patterson is the author of two chapbooks: So Much Tending Remains (2022) and To Bend and Braid (2023). Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appears or is forthcoming in Rust & Moth, SWWIM Every Day, CALYX, West Trade Review, Mom Egg Review and elsewhere. Emily holds a BA in English from Ohio Wesleyan University, where she received the Marie Drennan Prize for Poetry and an MA in Education from Ohio State University. She lives with her family in Columbus, Ohio.