Michael Hettich


And When
 

the storm had passed, the day smelled like wind
across a wide meadow I remembered like we almost
remember a dream, or the story of a boy
who hid in the grasses that were taller than he was

until whoever was looking for him
had vanished and he stepped out into the day
to set off down the road, on a quest to find something
I can’t remember now, though I do know the book

recounted his adventures, which I loved, since I needed
to get lost myself, to feel myself fade
from who I was supposed to be, into my not-quite
and never-mind dream life: I’d watched my brother swim

out beyond the breakers, too far to swim back in,
but I hadn’t swum out there to save him. Instead
I’d made up a song, a spell to turn the tide,
and pretended it had worked when he drifted back to shore

to wake up in the bunk bed above me, singing
another song we both loved, “Blowing in the Wind,”
as we danced around the bedroom, laughing, like a secret
we would never tell, dancing and singing

together, sleep-tousled, wearing only the underpants
we’d slept in, windows open to the green air
of summer, with someone calling someone else’s name
up and down the street, so we didn’t have to listen

and could just keep on dancing and singing, laughing
at the way we were dancing and singing, until
our mother called up to us: come down to breakfast
and we realized we were hungry, nearly starving.

 

Michael Hettich has published a dozen full-length books of poetry, most recently The Mica Mine, which won the 2020 Lena Shull Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society and was published in April, 2021. A "new and selected" volume is forthcoming from Press 53. In addition to Under a Warm Green Linden, his work has appeared in such journals as Orion, Poetry East, The Sun, Boulevard, and Rattle. He lives with his family in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

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