Pollards

Lori Propheter

The trunks down
the street stooped
under power lines
bristle with slender
shoots that keep
coming back no
matter how many
times they’re cut
for a while after
you left I wove
basket after basket
that wouldn’t hold
anything the doorway
caulked with moonlight
plow sowing sparks
down the street
soon the bark
shudders to life
again sharp as nails
under the snow

Lori Propheter lives in her hometown of DeKalb, Illinois. She is the author of poems that appear in Cream City Review, Mid-American Review, Waccamaw and other journals, and the Bramble & Thorn anthology from Porkbelly Press. Her chapbook, Wendy Inbetween, is available from Dancing Girl Press.