Prick of the Spindle: Poetry: Lauer: Take Root in My Lungs

Evelyn Lauer is an MFA student at Texas State University, where she is managing editor of Front Porch. Her poems have recently appeared in 42opus, Blood Orange Review, Denver Syntax, and are forthcoming in Sentence. She lives in Austin, TX with her husband and English springer spaniel, Belle.

Take Root in My Lungs
By Evelyn Lauer

If I could rake leaves into a pile,

and live in them again: fortress of foliage

I dream of you

and that autumn smell,

the one of fire, of wind, a fire of wind—

scabrous side of leaf against my skin

in the veinlets, I feel the blood

of the afterlife, a place where there is nothing

but maple trees in spring,

the fruit falling like helicopters

onto hills of soft grass:

Here I lay.

Here, my mouth opens; I let seeds fall in.