Centering the House
All night Kansas
the lungs of the continent
takes a sip of the galaxy
swirling stars and barbed wire
sofabeds and willows
books and doors banging open
signs disappear whole towns
ditch themselves in the countryside
I stir the coffee to center the house
the place our mothers and fathers
and theirs and theirs passed through
their aprons strung on telephone wires
this tunnel of wind this trial
makes trees throw back their heads
and hair on our arms stand up
we’re nothing but breath on its way through the woods
From The Afterlives of Trees (Woodley Press, 2011). Copyright © 2011 by Wyatt Townley. Used with permission of the author.
Wyatt Townley
Wyatt Townley was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and received a BFA in dance from Purchase College at the State University of New York–Purchase.
She is the author of four collections of poetry: Rewriting the Body (forthcoming from Stephen F. Austin University Press); The Afterlives of Trees (Woodley Press, 2011), winner of the Nelson Poetry Book Award; The Breathing Field (Little, Brown & Co., 2002); and Perfectly Normal (The Smith, 1990). She is also the author of Yoganetics (HarperCollins, 2002).