Melissa McKinstry was selected for a 2026 Pushcart Prize and included in Best New Poets, 2023. A graduate of the University of Washington, she earned an MFA at Pacific University and has served as the inaugural writer in residence at the Millay House Rockland in Maine.

Long Love—Betsy and Andrew Wyeth

by Melissa McKinstry
after Untitled, 1982 (restored lighthouse on Southern Island)


What I want to know is, will someone
in the future, after stringed instruments disappear,
remember the sound? Music’s evanescence,
like smoke swirled and held in a bell jar—
the more I desire the more I invent what I see.

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