Linda Rose Parkes
The Staghorn Sumac
She turns back the way they’ve come down the path
of buddleia and hawthorn, air red around the edges of mid October.
The next time she sees her son his voice might be breaking,
telltale signs dusting his upper lip like a plume of woodsmoke
blowing over the houses. When she gets to the orange Sumac she stops,
examines the fruiting heads, wishing she’d brought him here, drawn
his hand along the bark’s pelt towards the silence of animal
standing stock-still, after it’s been running. Body quivering, senses
livened by the fermentation of leaves. The furred sweat of rabbits
flashes into the undergrowth of coppers and cracked greens,
the sticky sap of pine. A stag’s heart beats across the forest.
Page(s) 67
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