Linda Harris Dolan

ode to spottswood.

 rocky patches in your fields and the ragweed grows
 
 so thick i think the bush hog won’t make a dent.

how could we not

have loved you?

you with your breeze, with your days
 unseasonably warm, and your hard, hard winter,
 
 and your ground so froze.

did you notice?
 
 
  the glitch, millisecond misfire
 
 in the genome you’d homed
 
 five generations
 
  and here we are
 
 wanting, missing you
 
 from hospital beds and hospital beds and—

we would have come back to you
 
 anyway. we would have laid our-
 
 selves in your hills
 
  anyway. our children,
 
 our children.

Linda Harris Dolan is a poet and editor. She holds an M.A. in English & American Literature from NYU, and an M.F.A in Poetry from NYU, where she was a Starworks Creative Writing Fellow. She’s former Poetry Editor of Washington Square Review and has taught at The King’s College and NYU. She's a 2016 Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee.