Melanie Perish

Next door the neighbor’s chainsaw cut
a branched limb. It tumbles.  Ground-caught
it cannot cage the air. Like branch or breeze,
you’re free:  of livid bruises, of all things intravenous,
and this life.  The sky today bears three pinfeather clouds
white as the egret we saw soar. I wonder if your afterlife
is the pale maize fuzz of goslings –
slight as chemo-curl.              

I’m dying one day at a time, you said.    

Melanie Perish has poetry in Sequestrum, Sinister Wisdom, Calyx, West Trestle Review, The Meadow, and other publications. Nevada Humanities featured her work the websites Heart to Heart and Nevadan to Nevadan. Her books include Passions & Gratitudes (Black Rock Press, 2011) ,The Fishing Poems (Meridian Press, 2017) and Foreign Voices, Native Tongues (Single Wing Press, 2021).