b a r b a r a  f l e t c h e r: other poems


Fissures

We used to come here to come here to swing.
And now, thin branches, black-barked and bare,
spread cracks across the greying sky -
a filigree of fissures where chilled drafts enter
and sweep downward, becoming wind;
that vibrates trunk and limb, loosens fragments of sky
that fracture at my feet.

It reminds me of the sidewalk on James Street,
narrow crevices cutting across cold cement,
scars mapping the pathway into small, safe places
a network of skeletal lines over which we leapt,
superstitiously.

It reminds me more of the grey wall
at the bottom of the stairs in your house,
the large indentation where it connected with
a mother's body, the fine cracks reaching out
like branches of a tree.