Weekly Poem: ‘Leaf at the End’

By Lily Brown

I climbed a giant leaf at the end
of my imagination. Across
the spotted water, the hill
fastened its yellow bushels.

The imagination asked for all the cities,
for the canopy to get its machines out
and tile the leaves. My friend Lily
assumes what I want and it’s so unfair.

The imagination shoves in and pushes
blithely out, a belt of pelicans, a plank
of hard clouds, bunches of doorknobs
halo the street-blighted hills.

I find a pile of antlers in the woods, assembled
for burning. I crawl beneath them and stay
there when the burners come with their fire.
Up in the canopy I dangle, touching nothing.

 
Lily Brown is the author of “Rust or Go Missing” (Cleveland State University, 2010).