The Naturalist’s Last Love Poem by Ashley Anna McHugh

I hate it when things spiral out of control, and it’s not even happening to me.

The Naturalist’s Last Love Poem
Ashley Anna McHugh

Nothing on earth
can last forever.
It’s become an art:
rain and the river

cut cliffs. Cold swings;
leaves fall with fervor.
Birds molt: their wings
lost feather by feather.

By increments,
tides slink like fever
from shore. Immense,
they drift out further.

So, when she leaves,
the world’s small favor:
I’ll forget, by degrees—
if over and over.

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