Clouds cleared.
Morning light falls
onto your palmate leaves,
reveals your leggy stem,
reminds me you need water,
takes me to that apartment
nine homes ago
where the previous tenant pleaded
to let you stay. Or rather
to let your great grandmother, at least,
stay, so many clippings and slips ago,
cuttings rooted and countless offspring
given away, sent off to others’ homes.
You need repotting again,
though you fill the upstairs hallway
with the same flourish as
in each passing year,
not a single scar showing,
no heartbreak among your glossy leaves.
You’ve no yardstick
to fall short of, just unrelenting vining
and leaning into the sun,
occasional dropping of spent leaves.
These, I add back to nourish your soil
and the three leaflets at the end
of each branching stem,
green losing its silvery sheen,
deepening, becoming glossy as you age.
Morgan Grayce Willow has published several poetry collections and chapbooks, most recently “Dodge & Scramble. As book artist, Morgan exhibited her one-of-a-kind book Collage for Mina Loy at Minnesota Center for Book Arts and collaborated on the handcrafted poetry anthology “Stitch by Stitch for the Quilt, Not Quilt” exhibition.
January 23, 2021 at 01:43AM
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