Mulberry: I will not survive you.

Vanessa R. Bradley

“…anyone who planted the tree would never live to taste its fruit.”

 

He wanted a mulberry tree so he planted one

She helped (with a toy shovel)

He held her hand steady around the watering can

Now (he is years gone) the mulberry tree holds fruit.

 

Sharing blueberry peach dessert

with a cornflake crust (nothing tastes as perfect

as memory)

Cold spray of a water hose and the neighbor’s

pool (dipping under, he’d burst through the surface

taking her with him)

Afternoon sunbeams from Sunday’s nap,

glasses askew, she’d take them carefully

from his face and hide (giggle when he woke,

I can’t see! Where are you?)

 

Now peaches taste like yearning

the mulberries are sour

and the pool always burns.

What would her grandfather think:

too tired to go on a walk after dinner

shunting joy off her back

she does not make pies anymore.

 

What she remembers are pieces

of a life (served from the plates

of others), what she knows

from careful mouths is

the slow fading of a person.

 

​​She wonders

what it must be like:

dying in a crisp white cot

to think your grandchildren, seeds

you planted long ago,

will not remember the heart of you

when they are grown.

Palms

Vanessa R. Bradley

My mother drags us to Ohio

takes us to the zoo to see

gorillas lumber on all fours

 

listen to seals scream. Afterward

my mom’s friend reads our palms.

I’m the oldest—I go first. Do you see

 

those lines that gather when you

clench your fists? Two marriages,

one divorce, two children.

 

My lifeline stretches as far

as I can cast a fishing net—the water

looks deep but I won’t catch anything.

 

Long after I decide I don’t believe

in love lines my husband loses

his mind. When I check him

 

into the hospital it smells of

cheap burning incense, feels

like dry cracked hands prying

 

my palms open to lay

my future out in front

of me, all absolutes:

 

divorce, children,

dead before 45.

I clench my fist

 

two little lines

two little ghosts.

When I spread my hand flat,

 

they vanish.

 

VANESSA R. BRADLEY (she/her) loves fantasy novels and writes a lot of poetry about divorce and discovering queerness. She lives in Epekwitk (Prince Edward Island) with her wife, where she is working on a collection of poetry about the meaning of flowers. She has been published with Thimble Lit Mag, the Adriatic Mag, Tilted House, The Wild Word, Blank Spaces Magazine, and On Loan from the Cosmos. Find her on Instagram @v.r.bradley and on Twitter @vanessarbradley.