Poem: December Trees

Another poem published originally in Wilderness House Literary Review, under the auspices of Poetry Editor Irene Koronas. All this month, I am posting some of my WHL acceptances to honor this venue and its leadership.

Owl

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December Trees

half-melted popsicles,
rain-slathered,

bark spongy with drench,
a lettuce of wood,
and spiny

like squished crabs
in a tubular crate,

icy as rejection,
twitching gale-numbed
claws.

don’t climb them
they snap like horns
of dead ibex,

and grimace
from fangs in notches,
revealing the crush
of hungers inside--

decades of lives
sucked by roots
to lard the pith--

every splinter an ant,
every rumple
some hapless sprite,
the twigs pedipalps

stolen from spiders
after they veiled
oaken bones.


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