Poetry by Lisa Ashley
nailing the metal roof. It falls steady on,
clicking like a bad wheel bearing.
The brilliant reds and golds
are getting battered, drenched
until they drown, mush up underfoot.
I want more of the sun’s colorcalling,
less of its slantburn in my squint here
where day gives way to black night by five.
I want to clutch that low down fire dazzle
before the clouds lower themselves over me,
a wet blanket disgruntled.
I want more sweet melancholy
autumn stretched over more days,
days that could bring back the siblings
that once surrounded me with noise,
sheared off like widowmakers
under winter’s snow-weight,
yet still moving about their lives—pinioned
in time, some strangers to themselves, one dead,
all lost to me.
I want more of our childhood games,
jumping in piles of leaves we raked,
undoing our work without care,
the lift of the leaps, the screams,
the soft landings we banked on without question.
I want to walk along small-town streets
lined with brilliant red maples,
leaves so blazed I can’t pick out singles.
Whole trees, torched and engulfed.
Lisa Ashley (she/her) Pushcart Prize nominee, descends from Armenian Genocide survivors and supported incarcerated youth for eight years as a chaplain. Her poems appear in Last Leaves Magazine, Amsterdam Quarterly, The Healing Muse, Blue Heron Review, Thimble, Snapdragon and others. She writes in her log home on Bainbridge Island, WA.
