Wayne Lee

This Year’s Harvest

There was something I wanted to say to her,
something about love, about her hands,

then I looked out the window and saw
how a young hemlock had gone brown
and half a dozen pears from this year’s harvest
still clung desiccated to the naked tree by the barn

and I forgot–-what brought us to this world?

Writer, editor and teacher Wayne Lee (wayneleepoet.com) lives in Santa Fe, NM. Lee’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Press, Slipstream, The New Guard, The Lowestoft Chronicle, Writer’s Digest and other journals and anthologies. He was awarded the 2012 Fischer Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and three Best of the Net Awards. His collection The Underside of Light was a finalist for the 2014 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award. His chapbook Buddha’s Cat was published by Whistle Lake Press in May 2024. His memoir Service Husband: A Caregiver’s Journey Through Disability, Suicide and Recovery is forthcoming from Mercury Heartlink in January 2025, and his collection Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in April 2025. Lee is the founder and host of the online Tuesday Poetry Practice community.