Flesh Remembers

by Tamara Madison


They chopped down the sycamore. I watched a man
feed the tree’s weeping flesh to a grinder, flesh so red
I expected bone to poke out white, accusing.

When they pruned the pine tree, they hacked
the branches, leaving each one red on the end,
welling with sap that fell to the ground like tears.

I tripped over a stump by a campfire last summer.
The gash on my shin was a chasm bleeding black
in the dark. My flesh remembers that camping trip –

cold rushing water, nights bright with stars, redwoods
like gigantic buildings, my companion asleep
at nightfall, and me in the dark, wet flesh weeping.

                                   
* * * * *

"Flesh Remembers" is part of Tamara Madison's new book, Morpheus Dips His Oar.

Tamara Madison is the author of three full-length poetry collections, Wild Domestic and Moraine (Pearl Editions), and two chapbooks, The Belly Remembers (Pearl Editions) and Along the Fault Line (Picture Show Press). A swimmer and a dog lover, she is a native of the California desert, but she has lived and traveled in many places. She is recently retired from teaching English and French in a high school in Los Angeles. Her new collection of poems, Morpheus Dips His Oar, is just out from Sheila-Na-Gig Press. Read more about her at tamaramadisonpoetry.com.