Cottonwood
Editor’s Note: This poem by Kathy Fagan is being presented as part of our special focus on poetry during #PoetryMonth in April. Please read our introduction to the series.
The cottonwood pollen is flying again,
Adrift like snow or ash. It lines
The curbs, it sticks to my lips
Like down to a fox’s muzzle.
I made a poem about it years ago.
We were new then. We’d set fire
To our old lives and made love day
And night, mouths full of each other.
Back then, we were a match
For June: arrogant, promising, feverish.
For as long as we live, summer returns
To us. And snow, ash, they, too, return.
From Sycamore (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2017). © “Cottonwood” by Kathy Fagan. milkweed.org
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