Author: Katrina Kaye

Your Chosen Tree

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Katrina Kaye

This body is the tall laurel stretched skyward.

These arms flail wildly,
always reaching too far,

serve better as branches to break
the sun from stony earth,
and streak light across your face.

This hair,
the blending of so many leaves

hide spine in the form of autumn,
fall in phases of the year,

change yellow to orange
to brown to dirt.

I cannot be your lover despite clever disguise,
and I am too old to be a flowered bride,
whose petals you stroke and
call your lovely.

Let me be your tree.

I stand well on my own knotted knees,
my posture firm against the winking of eons.

Balance your feet
on my
rigid roots,

stare at my silhouette
blackened against setting sun,
touch battered bark with tentative stroke.

My weathered skin
remembers past affections,
the words carved
into trunk remain there still.

And when I am no longer picturesque
and you no longer call me darling,
I will still hold
memory
in my gathering rings
and sprout blossoms of fruit
to scatter
around you.

When you come,
I’ll be where you left me,
happy to shade your head.

Take this token in place of me.
Be contented to wood and debris,
and regret not
your foolish play with bows and arrows.

“Your Chosen Tree” is previously published in The Fall of a Sparrow (2014).

Time

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Katrina Kaye

He says
he will make
time for me,

as if time is
a tangible thing
that can be woven
among baby’s breath,
wrapped in shiny
paper and ribbon,
and gifted at
front door.

As if time is
a silver necklace
with a knot in its chain,
a string of
green yarn
knit into
favorite sweater.

As if time can
be folded
like an origami acrobat
and added to
ornaments on mantle.

As though you
can conceive time
as easily as opening
passenger door
or buying the next round.

So do it, Darlin’
make time for me.

Create it from
your hands,
like a dove
under your sleeve.

Give me Sunday mornings
warm in your bed
lingering over coffee cups.

Lend me late night confessions
without worry for sleep
and kitchen floor tangos
where no time ticks.

Grant me the chance
to hold on to time
like you held on to my body,
fully with both
arms securely wrapped.

Gift me yesterdays
that slipped sly past
and the promise of
a hundred tomorrows.

Allow me to
stroke time slow,
savor its flavor,

leave time malleable
so I can fold into it,
stretch it like pink bubble gum
between the place we met
and the night we end,

mold time like red clay
against the distances I ran
and the sunrise I slept through.

I want to see time
instead of missing it.
I want to put a name to it
instead of a vacant hole
in my stomach.

Make time for me.
Weave it thread by thread,
quilt it into blue blanket
larger than just
the cover of my body,

so there is room
for you beside me.

“Time” is previously published in Flare (2019).

Hestia

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Katrina Kaye

He leaves a quarter on bed sheets
and say thanks for the Sunday schooling.
She has always preferred curling ears around his tales
to using fingers and tongue to spin her own.

Her hand presses to vacant mattress
searching for remnants of warmth.
He has taken all of summer with him
and despite suggestions she trims her hair
instead of allowing him to weave inside and drag her off.

Solemnity settles in the back of throat.
She spreads her pavement over feet,
solidifying stump to floorboards.

This is her home.

Fastened to this place in patient stubbornness,
she turns lonely as the seasons
pop their joints and reposition their wrists.
The quickening of wind,
slap of branch to window,
yelp of swinging gate,
a collection of relics resembling the way
his legs dart and dash.

There is still a pulse fluttering in neck
that wishes his return.
A chip of bone in inner ear
listening for his knock on the door.
But not all bricks form paths paved in gold,
not everyone is looking to find their way home.

She sinks stagnate,
settled and sliced,
a dissection,
opened up for him to take all he needs,
and leave the rest on beaten trail
to sulk to seeds.

“Hestia” is previously published in They Don’t Make Memories Like That Anymore (2011).