TREES by David Lawrence
The log that fell into the river went for a long swim into a hidden country where logs were the dominant culture and the trees wept as they saw their barky cousins floating home.
My wife loves trees
And cries
When a branch breaks on 72nd Street.
I don’t care whether trees come and go like soldiers in formation and lie down like one of the wounded in a futile war.
My wife likes plants too.
She puts an orchid on the windowsill.
I bought it for her for Mother’s Day.
She is not my mother.
I want her to be happy.
When we walk down Madison Avenue to the St. Regis Hotel for our Sunday tea sandwiches, I will pretend that I am a tree and hold her with my leafy hand like we are nature’s thrill.
Issue 6 Contents NEXT: Light Installation at the Hilton by Iva Ticic
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Get David Lawrence’ Lane Changes at Four Way Books |
TWO POEMS by Jane Wong
DIVING
To become a world carry your wounds with you:
bright plums split on a dish
a scattered alchemy in the limbs metal upon heart upon glint
could you ever leave? Steal this
in passing, in looking sideways: an owl, a doorway
ever-crooked I have no use for perfect vision
walking downhill always means hold on
to me like a rush of insects ringing heavy in the bells
in a key of light dive bombing outside my window, alight –
my advocate of world-making I assume that you can hear me
tapping along the wall testing poetry or
the solidity of my name language has nothing to do with what I want
these heaps of words, stone upon stone cairn to mark the way above a tree
line, pointing think of the wound instead –
the units of the wound, these lake-worthy moments
the boarded – up houses we sleep in
BREAKER-OF-TREES
My mother cuts the legs
off a moving crab.
The legs curl in a bucket
washed to garbage
to sea. When I come home,
I tread water on the carpet
and hang my head low.
Guillotine of the heart,
the wind causes trouble
between two trees.
The trouble causes splinters
enough to build a forest
in just one hand.
What can we learn
from disaster if not
the familiar angles of a face?
How I can touch yours and say Paul.
I crack open a geode
as a reminder of grace.
From the crystal center,
yolk splinters, pours.
Issue 5 Contents NEXT: Two Poems by Gregory Pardlo