Bree

No Mote

black swans i almost didnt see
but for their glowy beaks
red as sumac- they didnt match
the dark tones of lake, stuck out
like your lust for me while i read to
the children all cloistered- who could
hear me even from the colonnade,
all hickory and hops-vine, where
i saw you watch me from inside
a white willow tree.

mergansers with their heads trailing
swam among dead stakes of lotus.
that belted kingfisher bode us a
good day, and returned the
children to their cages below bald
cypress knees so naked i had
to look away.

you willowed no longer, i took leaf

to mean wing, and feather to mean

ivy. i took a shaded path back
to the armory. it got hot and thick
and i could breathe more heavily,
rapt on high, no mote of hope.

Bree is a poet and visual artist living in Pleasureville, KY. Her Green Panda Press has put out hand-made chapbooks, anthologies and sundry of the very small art and poetry press since 2001. In 2015 she began Least Bittern Books out of Henry County, KY with a focus on poetry paperbacks by strong, singular voices. In 2016 she received an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation of Women for visual art. Her new book 'and i am also invasive' will be available from Birds and Bones Press December 2016. A calendar featuring some of her collages for 2017 is available at greenpandapress@gmail.com, and her art can be viewed at theartistbree.com