Dispatches from an Unfinished World

Rebecca Lindenberg

A leaf the green that a child would choose
if asked
to draw a leaf.

This heavy-petalled rose
is humid as the accent
of my current correspondent.

Trees unberried by bird.
Trees unleafed by beetle.

My correspondent
is a tentative man and I
am unaccustomed to tentative men.

White rose blossom
browning at the edges.
Paperback book.

Inside, my mother humming
a song I’ve never heard.

Kinds of holiness.

Trees unbarked by winter deer.

My correspondent
will not let me love him.

Green things make
such mild noise.

I uncross my legs
to find, with a bare foot,
that sun has warmed the stone.
I partake of the sun.

And the stone.

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