Helen Johnson
The Fall
This man held her hand when she was scared.
He showed her the black ash buds and said
When these are leaves, he will be well.
He planted snapdragons along the path
so she’d feel their cats’-mouth faces push
against her calves when she walked by.
He put a light under the stairs
so she’d never find the dark when she was
looking for that little lost blue
pot she’d filled with teeth and hair.
That summer, she blamed the tree -
for letting their son up among
the swaying air where he didn’t belong -
and tried to scrub the shadow
of its leaves from the kitchen wall.
Sometimes she loved it -
the last living thing he knew,
its bark scuffed with his hug and crawl -
the way it curved its dipping branches up,
how it made green of everything,
even black, black buds.
Page(s) 21
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