July 2018
Penelope Moffet
penstemon1@gmail.com
penstemon1@gmail.com
My friend Jane Culp is a painter who lives in a strawbale house on a patch of high desert land near Anza, CA. We've known each other 30 years. Occasionally pieces of her story find their way into my poems. Often my best work comes from time spent away from my home in the paved-over world of Los Angeles. This poem is part of my second chapbook, It Isn't That They Mean to Kill You, a collection of desert poems due out through Arroyo Seco Press this summer.
The Tree
Every day
there it was
outside the bathroom window
obvious and lovely
Every day
she admired
its glossy leaves
its cloud of creamy flowers
She never brought
her sketchbook in
never lifted paintbrush
only stared
Stranded in a farmhouse
with her once-strong man
who could no longer walk
What she recalls:
a tree that spoke
her failure to reply
© 2018 Penelope Moffet
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