Terin Weinberg

What the Mountains Know

Jugtown Mountain, NJ

I don’t walk the same fields
I used to, but the cattail & lilies seem to follow
my path, through the mountains. In my dreams,
I’m at the pond side, hidden
in hills of my childhood. I sit in
the wet grass & pluck dandelions, smear
their petals in my hands, lift them
to my nostrils to smell the sweet grinds.

+

My father bottles them for wine & our bees ricochet
between stamens,
their pollen-pouches swollen, fighting
the stems to stay strong. I too, fear snapping
my neck at the weight of other’s
strength. I see my child-hands dangling fingers
in the pond scum,
pinwheeling the duckweed, spinning it around, feeling

it in my bones. Suffocation.
The duckweed lives off choking its water. I wonder
if a tight grip will end me too, if the roads will
wind back & carry me—
if the cattails will still call me home.

_______________________________________________________________________

Terin Weinberg earned her MFA from Florida International University in Miami, Florida. She graduated with degrees in Environmental Studies & English from Salisbury University in Maryland. She is a lecturer in the English Department at DeSales University. She serves as a reader & book reviewer for Beaver Magazine. Her work has been published and anthologized in journals such as: The Normal School, Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment, Red Earth Review & Split Rock Review. When she isn’t writing or teaching, she is farming her family’s property in rural New Jersey.