2015
POETRY OPEN
Honorable Mention
$25 Award
FLYING SOUTH
by Kathy Pell

Snow coating the rosebush
tells me you’ve gone.
Flown, as you always do, before the crystals
can form. Always.
They say no two are alike.
Just like us. Not alike, but just like us
needing the reassurance of one another.
I scoop an icy handful
saying my goodbyes
as they wither, wondering
how you say yours because
come spring, we won’t speak
of goodbyes. Sometimes I imagine
that I follow you—
pack up, find someone to feed
the cat and water the ivy—
but I am too rooted.
I’m the willow in the front lawn
while you are a hummingbird hovering
just out of reach of my trailing limbs.
I wish I could birth red flowers in the
crooks of my leaves for you or
that you loved the crisp winter night sky
and the sound of the owls hooting
through naked trees. Sometimes I daydream
that you buy winter boots and you stay,
but you are so pale and
in danger of disappearing
when the sun is low
in the November sky
and the shadows become long
like this
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Kathy Pell lives, works and writes in Marlboro, Vermont. Her work has appeared in Red Jacket, and Slant: A Journal of Poetry.