Megan E. Freeman’s debut poetry collection, Lessons on Sleeping Alone, was published in 2015 by Liquid Light Press. She has been published in literary anthologies and educational journals, and her poetry has been selected as texts for compositions commissioned by the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Ars Nova Singers. Megan holds degrees from Occidental College and the Ohio State University and lives near Boulder, Colorado.

Many Roads Lead to Town

many roads lead to town
but I choose the one that bypasses
the newly raped intersection
the massacre of old cottonwoods

(the farms look nude and embarrassed
like someone has ripped down their shower curtain
shampoo still running down their backs)

the day after they hit the ground
the crew arrives with the jumbo chipper
and finds bouquets of blue delphinium
wrapped in black ribbon on every stump

black exhaust billows into the air
swirling around the roar of the machinery
and a meadowlark sits on an orange traffic cone
and sings