Access Spring

There is no wrong way
get into, just press it. Back of keyboard becomes
dirt ground, press to
become a foot and see the dirt disturbed come up
on outer edge of sneaker foot,
you have to picture it to feel:

it also work through screen. Three children Henry, 
Elinor, and August they are holding
just-hatched chicks bought for my cousin’s business
taking pictures

hold if you want:
when look at child holding, feel your hand cup 
how you think 

as underneath each click were ground
unsettle dirt for nesting 
screen-for-looking reaches, chicks.

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Hillock

​on side of hill I drive, now Colorado
more shades of tan of red there is an animal 
deer, no they must be goats, are white on hillside
—not hillside, every few feet ground parts 
into hillock blanched from 
winter, like maybe the deer

why now has been sweet, too many to count
not just the animals, pieces of ground 
to whom I keep returning, where person lives
to whom I can, after

have learned what is hard, from elsewhere
have learned what is soft it is not ever me
but the goats who are home.

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Second to Last

Store we are outside my husband says better not go in
I say but we are here
he says the distance is not relevant, the many risks

but store across the street, you can see
the sky is blue, I win
he piles in my arms three bags of carrots
wet from ice just hatched

look down at basket: reach having, we have

Amanda Auerbach teaches literature and creative writing at Catholic University in Washington D.C. Her book of poems What Need Have We For Such as We was published by C&R Press in 2019, and her poems have also appeared in The Paris Review, Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, and Fence.