A-minor

by Erica Goss

            1.

In the garden           
the vegetables stand tall
as if they’d been told
that they were special,
but it’s the pellets
of blue and green fertilizer
I mixed into the soil.
I too
have been performing wellness.

            2.

I visit a kind woman whose hands
are warm rivers.      
She heals
my stiff shoulders
and twisted back,
but when I bring up
my feelings
I receive a shiny object      
like a gift
from a crow.

            3.

I walk the paths between plants
and am cleansed
like a beach after volunteers
have picked up the trash.

            4.

In the evening
the house finch visits,
his breast pink
as the palm of my hand,
and as some of us know
when a bird allows you
to see it up close
it means
you are forgiven.

Erica Goss is the author of Landscape with Womb and Paradox, (Broadstone Books 2026), and Night Court. She has received numerous Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations, and a 2023 Best American Essay Notable. Publications include Colorado Review, Georgia Review, Creative Nonfiction, Indianapolis Review and North Dakota Quarterly.