Through My Kitchen Window

 

 
 
 
mostly, I hear a phone ringing. Not much else.

Maybe I’d stand at the window more often

 

if the view were nicer—a lush forest

and a little doe eating red berries from a bush.

 

Even if she were only there briefly, even if

she never looked at me before leaping off,

 

it’d be better than this. What brings me here,

usually, is some dish I left out overnight.

 

(This time it’s a brown and withering

green salad.) But I want to be able to say

 

that it’s hope that brings me to the window,

that I made too much salad hoping for company.
 
 
 

Nathan McClain is the author of Scale (Four Way Books, 2017), a recipient of scholarships from The Frost Place and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and a graduate of Warren Wilson's MFA Program for Writers. A Cave Canem fellow, his poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Callaloo, Ploughshares, American Poets, Sou'wester, Broadsided, and Tinderbox. He lives in Brooklyn.