Red Bud
Laura Madeline Wiseman
Years your shovel lifted the tangled
root ball, your gloved fingers unwinding what will. We relocate
in the city lot. Your sunhat blocks
the power lines, the train rumbles. You steady
everything that grows: my split trunk,
the morning glory cups, the raspberry canes.
You have planted my voluntary roots
beside the dying silver maple. This season
I see I am mirrored in everything—
heart-shaped clover, smooth bark
of peach tree, blush of sedum. You whisper
of the neighbor’s fertilizers, its fraud. Toxins,
I have them inside my walls. Think of love
within these gates: vegetables, fruits,
fat and round and free, how some spaces
can be saved. There is care
to cultivate here, these blades
of grass, this open expanse of sky.
Laura Madeline Wiseman has a doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she teaches English and creative writing. She is the author of seven collections of poetry, including the full-length book Sprung (San Francisco Bay Press, 2012) the letterpress books Unclose the Door (Gold Quoin Press, 2012) and Farm Hands (Gold Quoin Press, 2012), and the chapbooks She Who Loves Her Father (Dancing Girl Press, 2012), Branding Girls (Finishing Line Press, 2011), Ghost Girl (Pudding House Publications, 2010), and My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press, 2010). She is also the editor of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013). Her writings have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Margie, Arts & Letters, Poet Lore, and Feminist Studies. She has received honors from the Academy of American Poets and the Wurlitzer Foundation.