For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets … In other news, I got a contributor’s copy in the mail today, which is always a happy time. But then my husband is reading my poem and says, “Umm, did you mean to spell yeast roll r-o-l-e?” No. No, I didn’t. For the record — since I’m billing myself as a poetry editor and all — the gremlin was at the other end. Oh, well. I know these things happen, and it’s still exciting to have the copy in hand, and it looks great other than that. I think I’ll let it go.

I Bear Fruit

Then I discovered that
everything I was carrying
was useless and heavy,

and I’d dropped all the
right, light things along
the way somewhere.

I didn’t know where
I was going, so I decided
to stand still for a while,

but then I became a
pear tree, one of those
stunted little pear trees

that grows around a
fence, as if the wound
has become integral,

the fence a new heart,
xylem and phloem
beating in chain link.