Where I First Was Happy

The twilight was never silver, but the trees were Russian olives.
I was the only thing that bloomed there.
Grandma’s petunias back by the house were really white,
And the pair of white horses never lay down.

The rest was grey: barns and fence posts
In matching dust, fine and smooth as refined flour.
Stirred up it could hang and fade like fog.

Now I feel like dust dispersed in air,
Settling over hours, days, taking the shape
Of what it touches, to move through high desert

On Grandad’s defunct F-150. I will the wind
To make me a haze so I redden the sunset,
Then let me settle to merge with the mountains

That savor the cold and understand
Their faint pain as they wear away.

Brian Jerrold Koester holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Louisiana Literature Review, HeartWood, The Delmarva Review, Right Hand Pointing, Agni, and other journals. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts and has been a freelance cellist.