Michelle Brittan Rosado – Every Window Filled with Trees

Michelle Brittan Rosado

Every Window Filled with Trees

I climb the wooden 
staircase 
to the backhouse 
built above 
the garages 
and I’m here 
at the level 
of the treetops 
thinking of 
Dickinson’s line 
about the gambrels 
of the sky 
and then remember 
my ancestors 
walked up carved logs 
to longhouses 
on stilts to outlast 
the floods—
and isn’t it always 
this way, 
some memory deep 
in my bloodline 
at the same time as 
an intimation 
of the western canon,
my body floating 
just feet above 
the earth, like a brain 
perched at the top 
of a spine, a branch 
etching its message 
back and forth
on the glass

Author’s note: The poems in this series all use the image of a window as their starting point, some in the title itself and others more peripherally. I’ve been thinking of this symbol a lot lately — as a portal for wonder in childhood, an aperture to others’ lives during the pandemic, a view of the world outside after giving birth and spending those early days indoors. These poems may not have come into existence without the invitation to contribute to The Fresno 15, and I am endlessly grateful to the MFA program for my years there and the deep sense of community I’ve carried with me since graduating in 2011. Thank you for reading and for supporting the Larry Levis Memorial Scholarship.