Should I Listen to the Trees by Jane Poirier Hart

Underground for years, cicada-like, it
surfaces, starts the sad, bright sawing:
my story of your story. Something triggers,
un-expectedly. Curly haired kid at the cash
register or the way a woman cups one hand
against wind to light her cigarette, flare
of butane igniting memory that leafs out
like a Maple in time-lapse photography.
Soon, there’s an avenue lined with Maples.
Soon they are bending this way and that,
this way and that, choreographed, shaking,
tossing limbs in a terrible, terrible wind.

A finalist in the 2018 Elyse Wolf Prize, Jane Poirier Hart holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including The Southern Poetry Review, The Worcester Review, The Ocean State Review and Lily Poetry Review. She lives outside of Boston.