as above so below
bull child meet half-horse mother
for the root appeal:
apple meet tree meet apple
mycorrhizal waves
share water proclaim distress signals
share distress proclaim water drought drought
everywhere but Miami:
that floating plastic
Flamingo bobbing on gator heads:
that dis-eased buoyant house of matchbox rooms
with pools and all-you-can-eat
that fire pit of spine-burning smiles
war up wore up boat up
oar up
(who will be left to row us home)
my oldest tree, a sister aquarian with Mars feet and a blue skull
the not-apple apple, the not-bull
the water air webs her bull sapling
claims a root deficiency a dry spell
(when I go who will pour into them)
my little May Taurian girl pines for an address
a root a stump with circles
all the other trees on the block who listen
a home desired
little boxes with door frames do not yet feel like coffins for her
foundations not yet mirrors to sleep in
what is a fun house where is not
*
she grows weary of her airport catch up Honey crisp mama
who lost her owl
weary of her half-horse root mama
weary of the horse
always launch ready
perhaps I am a bamboo antonym
perhaps I show her
how not to mother when mother has no tree or root or seed model or owl
(Bend bamboo back East for apple and not apple
New York bound, California floats in the Pacific)
*
No
bull mirror prefers four viola strings prefers black ice and hail
prefers trees who hear the blushing hour
who spell auburn shades that make God jealous or evident
anything but the palm or the cacti in the yard I rent
bull mirror prefers a soil introspection, a mud flat
to the bridge gene whose between veils
succulent shiver on my neck when the dead
address palm by palm
Row Me Home
oar up I said
as above, so below
*
for the not-yet-master of losing
for the bulb
for the buried in the cup on the school window
for the basket on the river
for the Tree of Life
for the siblings in the center of that garden
for our body no–his body on a tree any tree
for all the trees we turn our eyes from
for all the trees we carry
—
Sarah Jefferis holds an MFA in Poetry from Cornell University and a PhD in Literature from Binghamton University. She is the author of Forgetting the Salt (2008) and What Enters the Mouth (2018). Her poems and essays have appeared in The Catamaran, Rhino, NY Quarterly, YuZu Press, The Eunoria Review and others.
