by Lisa López Smith

deep in the dry season

these endless brown landscapes

and the bees in our hives

need the thorny huizache’s delicate yellow flowers

when nothing else grows.

When everything tells me to speed up,

do more, accomplish, acquire,

buy, spend, act, post, comment, like, pose,

there is my smallest dog in the tallest grass,

the vermilion flycatcher fluttering to the next branch,

that cloud which will never die.

Everywhere, dry grass,

everywhere, poems I can’t finish,

unheard songs, half-knowings,

dishes and laundry left undone,

but only stopping

all of that—

for this.

Lisa López Smith is a shepherd, writer, equine therapist, and mother making her home in central Mexico. When not wrangling kids or rescue dogs or goats, you can probably find her making magic in the kitchen or the backyard! Recent publications include: Huizache, Live Encounters, and The Normal School, and some of these journals even nominated her work for Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and the Pushcart Prize. Her first chapbook was published by Grayson Books in 2021.