Divorce
       

I can't wait on the back porch the whole of August clapping
starlings from the ripe, fat figs. Under the canopy is sweetest.
That's what I'll tell you, without ever sampling what hangs at the tree's
sun-bleached crest. When things seem too good, I worry something
will go wrong, my friend confides. I don't think it works that way, I say.
But who knows. Maybe there's a cosmic scale, maybe warm, worn-slick
rosary beads are a vaccination against broken wrists and layoffs.
My brother-in-law's marriage is unraveling. She can't do this to me, he says,
trying to leash an idea before it skitters away. I understand: I've unlaced
my fingers to find my palms empty, too. I've paused at each red cedar
in Volunteer Park, branches sheltering the under-canopy from sun,
regardless of angle or season. I've watched the koi in their lilypad ponds
breach, drift. She can't do this to me, I've said, with a tone better suited
for August storms. A sudden icy updraft turning rain to hail.

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Copyright © 2022 Rebecca Morton All rights reserved
from Sugar House Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission