Poetry: “SO IT’S SPRING” by Jacqueline Hughes Simon

& the robins are back
      dozens of them in the park

 but that spring, our first
      in this house,
 when I brought the baby back
      from (no matter what you think)
 a difficult morning at the park

& our cats, who were new
      to the feral outdoors,
 had hunted like cougars
      amongst what I assume
 were birds unsuspecting of cats
      from the spring before

& there in our home,
      where we were selling
 comic books to buy the baby shoes,
      were 7 dead robins:

      On the wretched mustard-colored carpet
            that hid the even-more-wretched floor,

      in the kitchen where the hot-water heater
            stood guard in a corner
      over the dead and dying appliances,

      in the bathroom with the tiles
            hexagonal grid of blue,
         white and sixty-year-old grout,

      in our room with the mattress
            on the floor,

      & the baby’s room, so guileless,
            smelling of new furniture and paint,

 7 dead, bloody robins and
      2 smug-to-bursting cats,

 I called you
      to come save me,
& you were there
      in 5 minutes, patiently
 cleaned up while I sat
      on the floor sobbing,

 not even for the robins,
      but for the treacherous work
 of being hopeful, being young.

Jacqueline Hughes Simon is a poet, bookmaker and Letterpress artist. She received her Master of Fine Arts in poetry from Saint Mary’s College of California. Her writing has appeared in the The Cortland Review, El Portal, Mudlark, Stirring, The Rail, Tupelo Quarterly, and others. Jacqueline was, until recently, a volunteer and board member of an environmental education non-profit, where she worked with and trained the donkeys. Which, in her opinion, constitutes the most interesting thing about her.