Green at the End

The world outside had turned into a forest. She had not been out in weeks and had not known, but she was running out of all food, so she tied a camo tank top over her face and stepped out. It was quiet. She walked down the stairs and outside and into it: tall trees stepping into the sky, moss beginning patchily on the street like an early beard, small red beetles, decaying logs, mud and unknown puddles of water. The supermarket was a hothouse, flowers lining the shelves. There was a purple flower that she thought had risen up from the inside of the earth, exposing the inner, shivery part of earth, the fullest and most muscled part. She held out a hand to pick it but pulled back. She went home again to open all the windows, in case the flowers would grow in themselves, perhaps winding around the radiators, up the walls, the curtain rods, nesting in the cool dank space under the sofa and behind the refrigerator. She locked the door behind her so that they would stay inside, maybe, so the secret would not overflow into other apartments, though it was all over the world. She put her keys in her jacket pocket and left.

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Regeneration

I saw you pluck a piece of sapling from the hills
A present, I don’t know,
A sun-scorched story,
A tale
A massive ambience of the liquid time.

But the manner you beheld it
Like you could see through its bare bones,
If you lick up the juice, now and then.

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Tree Communion

I know a grave in the woods
tricked with running cedar, mulched
with hickory and storms, telling heaven
to dance cobble-rock and quail-feather,
tuning up the sprouts, and all the thaws,
so they smooth and wriggle, and they smooth
and bank up every skeleton against a ghost,
so they all sing, so they all remember names
that touch like the tallest willow’s shadow
cribbing across the face of an old woman
waiting to find me here at home and alive.

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Turning Point

Turning Point when the caterpillar digests itself or orange leaves erode with dry veins. the Dagger Moth appears a pile of mold plastered in a corner, shed of its fur. when the rings of a tree seem lost because they are no longer cut open by lumberjacks when …. hold on. hold on to… like […]

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Signature

Signature Theoretically, if I were to put my hand against that tree and keep it there for years and years, the bark would continue to grow until it enveloped my hand send leafy tendrils along my arms and under my flesh. But if I were to stand here for a little less time I could […]

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January Nests

Mark Trechock writes from the Great Plains, southwestern North Dakota. He published his first poem in 1974 and took a 20-year hiatus from publishing, starting in 1995. He retired from a career in church and community organizing work and is writing again. Recent publications include Pinyon, Streetlight, New Limestone Review, andWilderness House Literary Review. January Nests […]

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The Kiss

Emeniano Acain Somoza, Jr. considers himself the official spiritual advisor of his roommates, Gordot and Dwight—the first a goldfish, the other a Turkish Van cat. His works have been published in The Poetry Magazine, Moria Poetry Journal, Fogged Clarity, Everyday Poem, Loch Raven Review, The Buddhist Poetry Review, The Philippines Free Press, Troubadour 21, Full […]

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Sly

Sly A girl tree, centered on an oxbow. All the others were boys, straining for altitude, reaching for her, hoping. She was a little bit older. By the time pollen happened, her root forks pressed against underground clods. She nurtured a green feeling for a young cottonwood, not the tallest nor the thickest. His rustles, […]

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Working in Reverse

Daniel Fitzpatrick grew up in New Orleans and now lives in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his wife and daughter. He studied Philosophy at the University of Dallas and his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in several journals, including 2River View, Amaryllis, Panoply, Eunoia Review, Ink in Thirds, and Coe Review. He plans to finish his first […]

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The Ginkgo Tree

C. Patrice Ares-Christian is a graduate student earning her Ph.D. in Asian American and African American literature. She is a lifelong writer and lover of trees. She is also an unashamed bibliophile. If you know her long enough, chances are you will hear her burst into random bits of song. She also loves to garden […]

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