Help Me Out Here by Louisa Schnaithmann
Even the tenacious bluebirds who squabble over
mealworms in the backyard know that
you must go full-throttle into this world, hold
everything in a wide wonder,
because the revolution of the earth
and the muscles of our bodies and yes,
too, the mealworms are all sacred.
They’re not dumb, those birds.
I don’t mean to sanctify everything, except that I do.
What is it that we’re meant to do here if not praise?
Louisa Schnaithmann is the author of Plague Love (Moonstone Press, 2021). Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in The Mantle, Rogue Agent, Gargoyle, and The Broadkill Review, among others, and she is the consulting editor for ONE ART: a journal of poetry. She lives in Philadelphia.