ALWAYS SOMETHING FALLING

Bonus feature from Kevin McLellan, Winner of the 2024 Granite State Poetry Prize

in the forest. Surrounded

by rooted earth, only lines

& shapes prime for bears.

Maybe spirits? The lake

is a mirror, then it isn’t. Only

the memory of it. Yesterday

the moisture on the bottom

of my tent I realize today

might be condensation from

my own breath that beaded

above my head & the-once-

a-part-of-me rained. Now, in

front of an early morning

campfire, I squint. Field Notes

on a Moth. The last time I saw

one it was grounded by heavy

rain in front of the recently

fallen, not felled, widow-maker.

It kept trying. It kept trying

& the grass so green around it.

Kevin McLellan is the author of: Sky. Pond. Mouth. (winner of the 2024 Granite State Poetry Prize selected by Alexandria Peary); in other words you/(winner of the 2022 Hilary Tham Capital Collection selected by Timothy Liu); Ornitheology (Massachusetts Book Awards recipient); Tributary, Round Tripand the book objects, Hemispheres and [box] which reside in several special collections including the Blue Star Collection at Harvard University. He makes videos under the name Duck Hunting with the Grammarian. Dick which won Best Short Form Short at the LGBTQ+ Los Angeles Film Festival and was also shown at the Flickers’ Rhode Island Film Festival, Berlin Short Film Festival, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival and others. Kevin lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Website: https://kevmclellan.com/