Love’s Wrong Turn
She seeks portals
places prone to wormholes
where time travelers shift between planes.
She seeks answers in objects
touched by geniuses.
She trudges across airports
to end up gazing
at Hemingway’s desk.
or at an animal skull
on O’Keeffe’s hearth.
She longs for a molecule
from the other worlds
that great artists visit
and she’s learned
how to feel her way
towards that particular magic.
There are clues in place names:
Manitou, Sleeping Giant, Spirit Lake.
She took Dan to a park the locals said was haunted.
They wandered side trails. Dan saw his first blue bird.
He wanted to turn back but she persisted
until she saw it at trail’s end:
a gray weather-beaten structure
shaped like a tepee.
She paused
stunned by the strength
of its protective force field
while Dan foraged for litter
one of many reason why
she loved him.
When the particles dropped their charge
she moved respectfully forward.
Dan was gone.
There was no sign.
And now she wanders
alone
seeking that place
that portal
that will bring them together
again.
Winter Made the Trees Suffer
Ice encased them,
then the weight
of a foot or more
of dense wet snow
drifted
onto dry branches.
The trees grieve
as any would
who lost their beauty
on a day of slow torture.
Burdens were exacted
until limbs ripped off.
Amputees now
they wave phantom boughs
into the wind
expecting to feel it.
Had it been?
Had they once been graceful
their needles
shimmering
in the sunlight
moving
to the breath of the earth?
Like betrayed lovers
searching for kindred souls
the trees noticed me.
And that was our first meeting.
***
Peggy Turnbull is a Wisconsin poet and librarian. Her work has been published in I Am Not a Silent Poet and Rat’s Ass Review: Love & Ensuing Madness Collection.
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