We Must Learn Not to Want What We Love - Kimberly Kralowec

When storm comes—it smells orange,

like lamplight. We listen to odd bird calls,

a lower pitch, sparrows on the verge

of evolving. Maybe they’ll never alight.

They will nest in the air, a new level.

My own is so high, I worry constantly

about falling—though your cheek rests

against my closed eye, your skin warm,

as if sun enthralls it. A potted plant

droops on the porch. I remind myself:

these clouds are water, not smoke. Their

shade is too pale, and their rain falls

so straight the windows stay dry—an effect

of increased pull of earth. Remember:

few creatures can live on sunlight alone.

We make nothing. We only unleash it.

Originally published by Belle Ombre, March 2023. The poem also appears in the author’s full-length collection, The Saplings Think of Us as Young, published in May 2023 by Kelson Books.  

Kimberly Kralowec is the author of The Saplings Think of Us as Young (Kelson Books, 2023) and a chapbook of love poems, We retreat into the stillness of our own bones (Tolsun Books, 2022). She was a finalist in the 2023 North American Review James Hearst Poetry Contest, the 2022 American Literary Review Poetry Contest, and the 2021 River Styx International Poetry Contest. A lawyer by profession, she lives in San Francisco. Find her at anapoetics.com