They say pick a tree to grow old with, yet leaves still gather like withered lives around you, and even that tree—once rooted fast in your memory— now falls into the mire among its rotting children, remaining only to be seen across the frenzied moments of this search for “a life stripped away.”

The dogwood blooms droop

like sleeping children over

the water, and the twigs

droop like it hurts to carry

them. The roots of the trunk

spread out like Papa when

he walked too drunk. It’s

branches spindly and knobby

as his twiggy arms gorged

on bursitis. Liver stuck out

like the front of an 85’

Silverado. Legs like Marlboro

100s but this one woman;

she takes photos at funerals

to show them to the family,

so there’s Papa all folded up

like a paper plane that didn’t

fly far enough. Polaroids

ain’t useful. This is no time

to be useful. This is time

to sing badly in the woods

and scare deer.

JL is a queer poet living in Georgia. Currently, most of the poems they write are about Yugioh cards and Youtube videos.

Softcover, printed with thermographic ink on receipt paper, 12.7x7.5cm
Published 2024 by betweenthehighway