Dispatches from an Unfinished World
A leaf the green that a child would choose
if asked
to draw a leaf.
*
This heavy-petalled rose
is humid as the accent
of my current correspondent.
*
Trees unberried by bird.
Trees unleafed by beetle.
*
My correspondent
is a tentative man and I
am unaccustomed to tentative men.
*
White rose blossom
browning at the edges.
Paperback book.
*
Inside, my mother humming
a song I’ve never heard.
*
Kinds of holiness.
*
Trees unbarked by winter deer.
*
My correspondent
will not let me love him.
*
Green things make
such mild noise.
*
I uncross my legs
to find, with a bare foot,
that sun has warmed the stone.
I partake of the sun.
*
And the stone.
Copyright Credit: Rebecca Lindenberg, “Dispatches from an Unfinished World” from Love, an Index. Copyright © 2012 by Rebecca Lindenberg. Reprinted by permission of McSweeney’s Publishing.
Source: Love, an Index (McSweeney's Publishing, 2012)