Poem Written with a Pinecone in My Hand
Here in my hand a cone from the beautiful eastern white pine sitsan offering from the tree planted thirty years ago after earth softened upcome spring enough to dig a hole roughly twice the size of the burlapball around the root of it. The cone measures six inches in length minus
the short stem; the stem extends into the axis around which whorlforty-two wood-like scales. Under each scale a pair of seeds with bluntsingle wings like aged paper once hid until the cone in its secondyear flared open and released them into the paws of a ground squirrel.
Turn the pinecone to the left if you can hear me from the ConnecticutTurnpike of your afterlife. I’ll stroke with focus my left thumb onadjacent scales for…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, September/October 2019