Tor Strand
Ascensions and Descensions VII
I once tossed a bottle cap
into a dire nothing at skull hollow.
I don’t often remember my dead,
never a rear facing child.
Instead, the kestrel hunting field
mice in the ditch of the last mast
of oak. A block of farms. An hour
of light lost to the curtail
of winter. The yellow plums
in the yellowing plum branches.
When I was younger,
the saftest place was the hollow
in the fruit tree. A white steeple.
Now my dear little niece is in the flowers.
Her pollen-speckled eyes
a trace of umber beauty
as if it couldn’t end sad—
as if a ripple of light
in the Pride of Madeira,
as she scents the sweet things
& dips her dark hair &
the gray pool falls over her face.
Tor Strand’s poetry and essays have been published in the Colorado Review, Salt Hill Journal, Fugue, Euphony, and elsewhere. His poems were nominated for a 2025 Best of the Net award. He is a recent graduate of Oregon State University’s MFA program in poetry. Find more work at torstrand.org.