"April 3" by Cole Swensen

April 3

Curve
now my
love these trees, three
careful arcs
arching away

from
create the space of

the way that turning your back on

The small
trees that border worlds on

Two men alone in boats.


Source of the text - Cole Swensen, Such Rich Hour.  Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2001, p. 45.

TJB: When the speaker looks at trees in a painting, she sees a strange fashion of forsaking. Vantage point and erasure are her poetic principles.