The Day After

The morning after the storm
small clusters of maple leaves
scatter over the yard. It must
have been some wind. The old tree
shuddered, flipped off its branch tips,
let them go, the way my chiropractor
snaps her wrists after working on me
to release bad energy from her fingers.
The tree won’t miss the leaves, it has
so many. There will be slightly less shade
on our patio. But what else flies through
the air that we don’t see looking down?
What other broken things do we step on
and keep walking?

Mary Jean Port

Mary Jean Port is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her chapbook of poems, The Truth about Water, was published in 2009 by Finishing Line Press. She’s had poems published on Indolent Books's What Rough Beast online series, and in Leaping Clear, and ellipsis… literature & art. She is a member of Minneapolis (Minn.) Meeting.

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