Sound bite - Michelle Seaman
Long-listed written pieces of 250 words or under submitted to the 2021 Urban Tree Festival writing competition on the theme of “trees close to you”
Sound bite
for Michael
My brother’s voice drifts thousands of miles from Tampa
to New York, through quarantine, to me.
He says, I lost my Lime. Damn Citrus Greening.
I hear a trade wind, sighing, just before a storm.
I think of my father’s grapefruit trees,
planes at night spraying malathion,
Rachel Carson, ospreys.
I ask him about his boat.
He says, I love being on the water. It’s quiet,
changes your perspective.
I hear a sea breeze, cooling, but with insects.
I bet, I answer, looking out my window,
Cedars windswept on the hillside, Maples rooted to rocks.
I am eating a clementine. I close my eyes. Chewing citrus
sounds like crunching snow. How can my teeth be my boots walking?
The sides of my tongue are cold, tart. This taste-language is direct.
I can think, Hands that spoke another language, brown hands
picked this fruit. Hands connected to a body, somebody worked the grove
to make a living, survive, like trees or the drowning girl
from the terrible song. I want to change
the lyrics, to say, Don’t you call her, Darling,
as you watch her die. Don’t you call her yours.
I can change lyrics, write a poem, but I didn’t plant this fruit.
My brother says, When you come down, I’ll take you out.
I hear thunder. I’d like that.
I ask him about his yard.
He’s thinking about magnolias.
Magnolias are ancient, before bees,
tough, surviving ice ages, continental drifts,
and the flowers are edible.
Michelle Seaman's poetry has been published in Entropy, Two Hawks Quarterly and 3Elements Literary Review. For more about her work, visit: https://michelleseaman.net/poetry
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