Issa Lewis

TREE CARVINGS

The tree absorbs the names, the hearts with initials in them, the fuck yous—

fifty years of words that had no other channel, that never became poems 

or got spoken to the people who needed to hear them.

The tree listens as its skin is sliced open, in passion or in boredom, 

with equal willingness and no complaint. It knows 

that next year J.T. will have broken up with A.M. 

and this carving won’t matter; will, in fact, mock the intensity of this moment 

and A.M. will cry when she walks by the tree next summer.  

Yet the tree allows the knife, and for awhile the words will shine palely

against the dark ridges of bark, a crusty sap-scab bleeding around the edges.

But time passes and the tree swallows them quietly

like skin swallows a wound, like a year swallows a minute.

Issa Lewis is a graduate of the New England College MFA in Poetry program and currently teaches at Davenport University.  Her poems have appeared in Pearl, Naugatuck River Review, November 3rd Club, and Switched-On Gutenberg, and her book reviews have appeared in Alehouse.  She lives in West Michigan.