Ingrid on De Rerum Natura

That I could claim a dirty tributary for my own, claim the loess
in a certain hill and name it–
now that was an Eden and held up

though I’d guessed Mom was atoms, Dad was atoms, my brother
and I were atoms, even our dog.
The terrors of the obvious

didn’t faze me as a girl–I’d never run
from Apollo or my “Fear of the Lord.” But I could always marvel
at a drop of rain, and feel shaken

by it, retracing its fall up
from my forehead, through nothing–
the miles of nothing, into weightlessness–

all the jittery premonitions
that make a cloud. The cloud shook
with atoms, our town below it shook, the river,

my little history–first love and shames, and anything
that could be said about them–shaken, but holding together
like so much mineral dust silted off

a palatial glacier. It presses even now
invisibly and hard against the stoss side of this, while you
and I lean too meekly against the lee.

Nicholas Regiacorte is the author of American Massif, published by Tupelo Press (2022). His poems have appeared in 14 Hills, Copper Nickel, Mary, New American Writing, Descant, Bennington Review, Colorado Review, Verse Daily and elsewhere. Currently, he teaches at Knox College, where he directs the program in creative writing.