the angry ball of flesh
jumping for hours
under the sagging oak tree?
one summer i shook a branch
and a piece of bark fell into my eye.
i cried it out a few days later.
under that tree i learned about my neighbor’s lesbian aunt
and i imagined two letter Vs clanging together.
years earlier, i wore a “tough chick” tshirt
(chicken with eyelashes in an army uniform) and
crushed acorns underskate playing broom hockey.
years later, i toiled with paving stones for the overgrown garden.
slapped a plank of wood across the chair to act as a desk
set up shop with novels, a journal, pens, iced coffee, glass of water,
spilt everything once a day as an offering.
saw moles burrow, plants take root,
my brother’s wheels suctioned into and out of mud.
knew it would storm just by looking at a bush moving in the wind.
each year i forget and each year remember my mother planted magnolia trees.

H. Murray Valentine (xe/xem/xyr) is a writer, diviner, and zinemaker who facilitates generative and playful poetry workshops. Xe co-owns and operates the forthcoming pottery studio and art space, Railroad Avenue Community Kiln, in Viroqua, WI. Find xem online at hmurrayvalentine.net.