Rachel Walker

Elegy for a Live Oak

Before the riverbed dried and chalked the roots
of the live oak behind your house, wisteria
shocked the grocery store parking lot and
we split a carton of milk against the pavement. 

Before the cracked metatarsal bone, we woke
to pain without the memory of its source.
We dreamed of that choked-up river,
of our thirst, the snarling dog. Before the room’s

bright green walls were lined with crates
of rotting apples, their fragrance curled in our throats…
the day flourished each of its hours: we cooled
our backs on the marble floor, and the oak leaned
into its vision on the water.

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Rachel Walker is a poet from Maryland. She currently lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she is an MFA candidate at UNLV. Her work has previously appeared in Mud Season Review.