Michelle Brittan Rosado
Picture Window at the Beginning of Shutdown, March 2020
the three-year-old follows
with his eyes the garbage
trucks traveling left to right
hauling the last of our moving
boxes and the mail carrier’s white
van idling across the street
and the construction
crew on schedule to peel back
the street down to its striations
of rock and concrete and pour new
asphalt back over like a chalkboard
wiped clean of words
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.
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