Kelly R Samuels

Talking of a Kind

You are not the center
of the universe—walking down the middle
of the grocery store aisle—I said to them—

                                    my son, my daughter.

Take a look
around you.

And on the trail, watch the verge. Watch
your step—for the coiled fiddlehead.

Roots running along the surface are just a hint
of—what we scrap with our boot, what understands
that healing is what is called for.

All the grasses swaying.

Listen: all the shameplant’s leaves remain open
after only a few times. It’s learned quick. Recalled
well long past the bee.

All those years—I couldn’t keep anything alive
in that one space where the fence was bowing, as if

the tree knew something I didn’t. As if it had
corresponded with what I planted—saying not here—

                                                not here.

In the forest, we kept from picking the red trillium—
that butcher’s blood.

In the glare, we shuffled
to the side—mumbling Sorry.

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Kelly R Samuels is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of Words Some of Us Rarely Use (Unsolicited) and Zeena/Zenobia Speaks (Finishing Line). Her poems have appeared in Salt Hill, The Carolina Quarterly, The Pinch, Sweet Tree Review and RHINO. She lives in the Upper Midwest.