Grace                                                                         —Michael Hettich


Like a wind-blown seed in just-tilled soil,
I woke to a light-filled room I hadn’t
gone to sleep in, with a strange dog
snoring at my feet. But I’d stayed home reading
the night before, and I hadn’t dreamed anything
I could remember, though I tried, lying there
while the dog twitched in sleep, and someone seemed
to move through the house like a breeze—I could hear her
singing, in a language I don’t know—

and as I listened more closely, I woke
to the man I think of as myself. I lay there
as nothing, and nothing but him, while the birds
chattered as they flew through the garden, ignoring
the just-landed seeds, and feasting on the insects
that might otherwise sting.

Michael Hettich

Michael Hettich was born in Brooklyn, NY, and grew up in New York City and its suburbs. He has lived in upstate New York, Colorado, Northern Florida, Vermont, Miami, and Black Mountain, North Carolina, where he now lives with his family. He has published over a dozen books and chapbooks of poetry, and his work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies. A new book of poems, To Start an Orchard, was published in September by Press 53. Michael Hettich’s awards include several Florida Individual Artists Fellowships, a Florida Book Award, The Tampa Review Prize in Poetry, and the David Martinson–Meadow Hawk Prize. He often collaborates with visual artists, musicians, and fellow writers. His website is michaelhettich.com

ISSN 2472-338X
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