by Blair Kilpatrick
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A large tree fell on a parked car and another car with the driver in it on Haight Street between Fillmore and Webster Streets in San Francisco on Tuesday, March 21, 2023. Credit: Craig Lee/The SF Examiner |
Green bedroom curtains
barely parted
frame brown cypress
backlit by morning light
my gaze passes
through narrowed slit
like an arrow
from within a fortress
I follow my eyes
in search of a perch
in welcoming crook
between branch and trunk
arms raised up like a supplicant
I find myself wedged
in tight angled space
high above ground
look up and down
ready to fly
or free fall
tree fall
all fall
down
Two years later
we rise to cold silence
water retreating
winds now stilled
open curtains
reveal empty space
too much sky
where tree should be
Our cypress slumps
across neighboring fence
head rests on rooftop
exposed roots remain
tangle of brown
new mound of green
crows and wildflowers
mark a fresh grave
Blair Kilpatrick is a psychologist and folk musician. Her poetry has appeared in ONE ART, MockingHeart Review, littledeathlit, Amethyst Review, and it is upcoming in Syncopation and Soul-Lit. She is also the author of the music memoir Accordion Dreams (U. Press Mississippi). She lives in Berkeley, California with her husband.