Today's poem is by Leslie Ullman

Define an area as "safe" and use it as an anchor
       

There's a space inside waiting
where nothing has to happen.

The mind's machinery
gears down, releasing only a tick

now and then, like a heater
turned off. Wheels on stone shake

ground far from here, as
something like egg white beaten to air

holds me the way this morning I held a vole
in down-gloved hands, carrying it

from the cat's jaws back to furrowed earth
and brown grass. It didn't struggle

in that softness, that transport, and even
allowed me to stroke its head briefly

with my thumb, giving all of itself over
to a suspension between

the facts of its life
and a chance to begin again.

Copyright © 2025 Leslie Ullman All rights reserved
from Unruly Tree
University of New Mexico Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission