Boxelder Season in the Tennessee Valley
Jesus It’s Palm Sunday, and the Spanish bluebells
stand so tall and straight a bluebird perches there
in the pine watches dives for an insect
returns To my right unlentlike pink azaleas
glow like drag extravagant plush lips pouting I
can hardly look at that ease of being A friend sends a poem,
a podcast a song— I startle horrors what if
I break Boxelder inflorescence drops, like
tassel earrings like tasseled pasties like joy
I pick them up to study for a moment in a gloved hand
Certainly the fringed daisy fleabane just lifting
its pink lashes will be the same Certainly the bluebird
chicks we’ll hear soon, as the fatherbird lands with three worms
streaming down his chin and, as I’m on the subject
this boxwood— how many times I’ve tried
to kill it it keeps doing this it keeps living
Anna Laura Reeve is a poet living, gardening, and getting into tarot near the Tennessee Overhill region, historic land of the Eastern Cherokee. Previous work of hers has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Rust + Moth, Fourteen Hills, and others. Her first poetry collection is Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility, published in 2023 by Belle Point Press. Read more: www.annalaurareeve.com.
Header photo by PhotosByLarissaB, courtesy Shutterstock.
