For nine days a Bradford leaf hung
from a single spider filament,
slowly turning like seasons on an axis.
Suspended like Woden on Yggdrasil
it too, speared, spoke in autumnal runes.
Yesterday, gravity induced piercings,
the rains came; tattooed anecdotes,
transparent crayon sketches, filtered
down through yet green branches.
They packed an old narrative.
The three, woven together, stitched
tales like three crosses on a hill.
This morning the leaf was gone,
vacant tongued horizons, unvanished rune.
—
Ralph Monday has had over 200 poems published in literary journals and online literary sites. A chapbook, All American Girls and Other Poems was recently published, and a book Lost Houses and American Renditions is forthcoming from Hen House Press.
