Come to Me with Nothing if at All
Carol Alexander
That bare patch where a caravan clenched rot
abuts a cairn grown from sticks & mud
that cannot survive thaw—
March comes thickly blossomed to wetlands
or blue brittle over northern walls
involute tree buds, the wind acid as cold fruits.
There is no lack. What slight springiness underfoot
is presage, pursuit, hawk on the marble ledge
pinned & bronze, ice king with shimmed beak.
You can almost taste the common blood
stirring persistent beneath feathers, through its knotty heart.
Absence sharpens the tearing eye, finds live shoots
scallion white among dry teasels
snowdrops a map for incandescent flowers.
Days all entr’acte, restlessness not vegetal enough
you wound the garden like a clock
rooting willows in a soil greedy to outlast.
Carol Alexander is the author of FEVER AND BONE (Dos Madres Press) and two other poetry collections. Her work has been published in numerous print and online journals, such as About Place Journal, Denver Quarterly, The Common, Southern Humanities Review, Stonecoast Review, Third Wednesday, and Verdad. Recent work appears in Another Chicago Magazine, Delmarva Review, Free State Review, Potomac Review, San Pedro Review, and is forthcoming in RHINO and The Summerset Review. With Stephen Massimilla, Alexander is co-editor of the award-winning anthology Stronger Than Fear: Poems of Empowerment, Compassion, and Social Justice (Cave Moon Press, 2022).