At Forty

You’re still barefoot in the creek 
as crawdads scuttle under rocks.

You’re in the kitchen too, dog
underfoot as oil swirls in a pan. 

You’re in the treehouse cradling 
a library book, peeling a sunburn.

You prune the lupine, deadhead 
sage, pull weeds up by the roots. 

You float the swimming hole, 
too scared of leeches to put feet 

down. You lean into your wife's 
arms as she kisses your hair. You 

lift warm eggs from under a hen. 
Everyone’s laughing, as suddenly, 

crying. Your father stokes a fire 
in the cast iron stove beside your 

cradle. Your wife follows with 
a load of kindling. You’re born 

with a scream just in time to tell 
a neighbor's daughter, I’m no one’s 

mommy. Your heartbeat quiets as 
your mother gets younger, holds 

her cheek, hot from a slap, then 
curls into her own mother. You 

crest another ridge and the valley
below is secret as a belly button.

---

Luiza Flynn-Goodlett is the author of Mud In Our Mouths (forthcoming from Northwestern University Press) and Look Alive (winner of the 2019 Cowles Poetry Book Prize from Southeast Missouri State University Press), along with numerous chapbooks, most recently Familiar (Madhouse Press, 2024) and The Undead (winner of Sixth Finch Books’ 2020 Chapbook Contest). Her poetry can be found in Fugue, Five Points, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. She serves as a Poetry Editor for the Whiting Award–winning LGBTQIA2S+ literary journal and press Foglifter. Her critical work has appeared in Cleaver, Pleiades, The Adroit Journal, and other venues.