Aftermath | Elise Gregory

Elise Gregory and her scions inhabit a small hillside in western Wisconsin.  Her poems have appeared in Stoneboat, Rock & Sling, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Cider Press Review, Women Arts Quarterly, Mom Egg Review and elsewhere. All We Can Hold: Poems of Motherhood, which she co-edited and compiled with Emily Gwinn was published April 2016 by Sage Hill Press.     Songs of an Old Farmhouse The song lived. The song was proudand awful inside the farmhouse. It sangwith a toneless throat in the shower.It sang through maple floors. The doorscaught it and complained when shutor opened 'til kids cried. The songwas persistent inside goats and fox-claimed chickens—dead beaksclacked in time. It had a mouthand hands that hooked us. The song tendeda garden filled with foxglove. It created a chorusof orioles. The song lounged on the front porchin summer, tickling the children like a baduncle. I thought I'd dust it out—take a vacationfrom all the sound. But the song wouldn't budge,my sons hummi