Waiting

By Tara DaPra

Two baby birds
in the cedar
wrench their necks
beaks agape
waiting.
Under the mid-day
sun, I rip out
groundcover in favor
of vegetables, plant
peas, a lacey-leaved
tomato. The smells
of salt and musk
and damp earth
linger as I sweep
the sidewalk
clear of weeds
and haul basswood
branches from last
night’s storm.
I only know how
to write one kind
of poem and for
green shoots
I’ve waited
so long.

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Tara DaPra is an associate teaching professor of English and Writing Foundations at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay with an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. Her writing has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Liminal Transit Review, and fsm. Arts Journal. She met her husband in a Dublin pub and they are parents to two red-haired boys.