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Pam Baggett <br /> 8800 Wilkerson Road <br /> Cedar Grove NC 27231 <br /> 919-537-2164 <br /> nightair@mindspring.com <br /> Joy <br /> If I could I would go right now to the greenhouse <br /> and pot up some tender seedlings,just to feel the pleasure <br /> of dirt gritty beneath my fingertips. But it's dark out. <br /> Tree frogs are piping music from oak to hickory, <br /> and joy is rising in me as I spoon ice cream <br /> from the open carton. Joy was with me earlier, too, <br /> when I stepped outside to smell the sweet mimosa <br /> and earlier still when I broke bits of leftover hamburger <br /> into my dying dog's dish. Joy in the photo of a pale <br /> mauve clematis pinned to my wall, in bare feet <br /> and the cool dampness of a humid July night. <br /> Joy in this rare coolness so unlike the hellish steambath <br /> I could be stewing in tomorrow. In open windows <br /> and moths that slip through holes in screens <br /> to suicide against the incandescent joy of light bulbs. <br /> Joy abundant as the cracks in farmhouse walls <br /> and ants across the counters, even joy—almost- <br /> in mice that steal across them, but no, that would be asking <br /> too much. But joy, yes, in mice outdoors, and yes, <br /> in tree frogs singing and yes stars shining <br /> and yes the sweet mimosa, yes. <br /> "Joy" originally appeared in the Atlanta Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 2 (Spring/Summer <br /> 2012) <br /> and will appear in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VII: North Carolina in late <br /> 2014. <br />