POETRY

A Little Piece of You

Crabapples and guitars

Photo by Vlad Deep on Unsplash

I can’t seem to sit
still today, so I packed
a little wicker basket
with an oversized
towel and extra-large
bottle of bug spray and sit
beneath our tree.

As the sunlight winks
between leaves as they dance
in the breeze, something flickers
in the corner of my eye, a bit
of movement, a rogue shadow
broken free from the forest.

Nothing is there, of course,
there never is, not when I turn
to confront this elusive
thing, but I feel its presence
all the same, a creature that lurks
in my peripheral vision,
a hallucination just out of reach.

Tired of things I cannot
see, I climb a crabapple tree
and lay across its sturdy
branches, an old guitar resting
in my lap as the tree cradles
me like a rough hammock.