They say pick a tree to grow old with, yet leaves still gather like withered lives around you, and even that tree—once rooted fast in your memory— now falls into the mire among its rotting children, remaining only to be seen across the frenzied moments of this search for “a life stripped away.”
The dogwood blooms droop
like sleeping children over
the water, and the twigs
droop like it hurts to carry
them. The roots of the trunk
spread out like Papa when
he walked too drunk. It’s
branches spindly and knobby
as his twiggy arms gorged
on bursitis. Liver stuck out
like the front of an 85’
Silverado. Legs like Marlboro
100s but this one woman;
she takes photos at funerals
to show them to the family,
so there’s Papa all folded up
like a paper plane that didn’t
fly far enough. Polaroids
ain’t useful. This is no time
to be useful. This is time
to sing badly in the woods
and scare deer.
JL is a queer poet living in Georgia. Currently, most of the poems they write are about Yugioh cards and Youtube videos.
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Published by betweenthehighway, 12.7 × 7.5 cm, Softcover, 2024,
