Karen Neuberg

Twin Oaks

            with a nod to Joyce Mansour

Let the blue crayon have its wish
to color the sky, then shape a cloud
to become a kite that becomes a carpet
flying back into the vestibule of the house
you grew up in. Rush up the stairs
and into your old room and greet
the twin oaks outside your window
like the long-lost friends they are.
See them wave. See them
dance and let down their hair
for you to braid into your heart.
Hear them tell how they sometimes wept
because they were not part of a forest
or even a copse in the middle
of a field of wildflowers. Scrape
their sadness into a bowl of moss
where mushrooms surprise morning
with their unexpected presence.
And when the sun dips from the other side
of earth and rises where you are, step back
into your life carrying with you those twin oaks
and their forest dreams plaited into your heart.

Karen Neuberg is the author of the full-length poetry collection, PURSUIT (Kelsay Press) and three chapbooks including the elephants are asking (Glass Lyre). Her recent poems can be found in Big City Lit, Home Planet News, MAINTENANT 17, Nixes Mate, and SurVision. She is the associate editor of the poetry journal First Literary Review-Eastand lives in Brooklyn, NY.