Cecilia Byer
Economy of the Forest
He was there at the layoff, where
The forest shut down—the rippled pond
In every oak recessed its banded babble
And chilled its notched marking of age.
The forest held its swell (indefinitely),
Waiting for two trillion to be carted in.
Up, up were the halos, stacked in swollen pause—
The trees, in wind, neither twitched nor ached.
Nothing, not even the rings, moved. And he—
He was there, at the layoff, the only thing
Growing in that awful place. The unripe,
The stillness, it rattled him. So empty it was,
Like gutted things: fish and plums and chests
And hollowed trees; trees hollowed,
Hollowed by him, by him! His fist
Punched holes in all that wood. He clenched
The pulp of backyard oak; soggy rings,
A puree of engagement between his fingers.
It was then that his veins branched and scratched at skin.
Blood sapped and the wedding never came.
—Submitted on 04/22/2020
Cecilia Byer is a 2020 high school graduate who will be attending Emory University in the fall. She has received a Certificate of Superior Writing from the National Council of Teachers of English, and a Gold Key for poetry from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. You can follow her poetry page on Instagram @celipoems.
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