Ode to the First Warm Day in Brooklyn

by Emily Polson

Did you know
bears do not sleep
all winter long?
They enter a state
of sluggish torpor.
Warm weather breaks
and we are drawn
from dark dwellings
—like moth
to latrine light
at scout camp
like bumble bee
squeezing
through the crack
between AC shutter
and windowsill—
to what Colin calls
the lungs of Brooklyn
still an expanse
of browned grass
skeletal trees.

Did you know
dung beetles
navigate
by the night sky?
They stand atop
their fecal wheel
wave their arms
a private dance
to memorize
their relation
to constellations.
When our hemisphere
leans in
toward our star
awaiting good gossip
an instinctual urge
makes families barbecue
kids fly kites
and twenty-somethings
sneak sips
of White Claw
snack
on sweating cheese
and Whole Foods crackers
to remember who
and where
we are
and why.

Did you know
urban planners
created
the pollen problem?
They planted
too many
male trees
thought falling fruit
a hassle.
Maybe that’s myth
an allergist
on Instagram
told me so
most trees
are monoecious
but what matters
is one afternoon
in Valencia
Krista and I ate the oranges
those glowing globes
from the ground
but found them
sour
and bitter.
Sweetness
comes from watering
photosynthesis
and that’s it—
we come outside
to be
watered
to grow sweet
in sunlight.

Emily Polson is a book editor and Pushcart-nominated writer whose work has appeared in HAD, Pidgeonholes, Salt Hill Journal, and elsewhere. She is pursuing an MFA at the City College of New York, where she also teaches first-year writing.