The Visiting Poet Said Words Forget How to Mean
The tangerine he set on the desk unpeels
its orange spool and that means the sun also
unpeeling each morning so I can wake up
and witness the yard take form—the way
empty birdfeeders swing on branches of trees
that forgot all winter how to unpeel into green,
how to unburden their emptiness.
All we need from the sweet tang of the orange fruit
is singing backwards now to a Florida grove
where blossoms breathe sea air from far away
and wait for the meaningful bees to arrive.
Lisa Zimmerman’s poetry and short stories have appeared in Natural Bridge, River Styx, Colorado Review, Poet Lore, Cave Wall, Redbook and other journals. She has published five poetry collections, most recently The Light at the Edge of Everything (Anhinga Press, 2008) and Snack Size: Poems (Mello Press, 2012). Her poems have been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. Lisa is an associate professor at the University of Northern Colorado and lives with her family in Fort Collins.
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