by Laura Madeline Wiseman

Dear thorns in a chain linked yard,
sometimes sweetness fails to fruit.

Dear nearly hairless. Dear curved
and twisted. Why did he despise

her bell-shaped petals on the lawn?
Why did her thornless form lack

a sharpness he coveted? Dear ripe.
Dear sweet pulp. Dear brown seeds.

How quickly he cut her down one morning,
men everywhere with ropes and blades

sawing her black bark, yanking
her fissured limbs to the ground—

the ground shakes half a block away.
He never asked for kitchen spells, recipes

to open her womb, accept his white seed.
Dear honey. Dear edible bean. Dear shade

over his drive, drink this charm and leave.

 

Laura Madeline Wiseman is the author of over twenty books and chapbooks and the editor of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press). Her books include Drink (BlazeVOX Books), Wake (Aldrich Press), Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience (Lavender Ink), and the collaborative book The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters (Les Femmes Folles) with artist Lauren Rinaldi. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Margie, Mid-American Review, The Iowa Review, Calyx, Ploughshares, and Feminist Studies. She teaches writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. lauramadelinewiseman.com