Kat Bodrie
Where Do Trees Go After They Die?
I wake to hear a fresh craaack
outside, a thud.
The house hasn’t trembled
but I don slippers and sweatshirt
anyway, make sure we don’t need
to get flashlights ready. Beyond
sideways sleet and rain, past
the wooden light pole, a hemlock
from the public park
has fallen into the street.
Tomorrow, a tobogganed man
will chainsaw through the body,
haul away limbs on his four-wheeler.
But now sharp, splintery fingers
point to snow-spewing heavens
and all I can smell is Christmas.
Kat Bodrie is the founder and editor of Bramble Press and bramble, an online poetry lit mag. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry South, West Texas Literary Review, Poetry in Plain Sight, and elsewhere. She frequently collaborates with George T. Wilkerson, who lives on death row. katbodrie.com