by Ilene Millman
Bloom summoned by spring rains
has summoned her—
she stands on her patio square
stretching up in her sleepy gray sweats,
morning sun slowly climbing the arc of sky.
From where she stands, all rosy
blossoms up and down the redbud
like pink freckles
on tanned arms
the woman watches
the sun curve
up around the tree’s branches
like a playful kitten,
and at the touchy tips
she sees tiny heart-shaped leaves
almost translucent
as the eyelids of newborns.
A cardinal hops from pinked arm to arm
to the top of the tree
his raucous ring of birdie, birdie, birdie
ending in a slow trill.
It was the whistle of this songbird
rising on the gaunt wind that caught her—
Aren’t we all susceptible?
Her mind draws the details—
disappearing species
melting icecaps, rising seas
and the redbud
offering its hearts
and the redbud offering
its hearts.
Ilene Millman is a retired speech/language therapist who spent more than thirty-five years teaching children who learn differently. She published two language therapy games. Millman’s poetry received a Pushcart nomination in 2022 and is featured in print and Net journals including , The New Verse News, Potomac Review, Healing Muse, Nelle, The Journal of New Jersey Poets and others. Her first poetry collection, Adjust Speed to Weather, was published in 2018; her newest collection, A Jar of Moths, was published by Ragged Sky Press in March, 2024.