Backyard Fable

By Jami Macarty

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Planted at her birth for maple shade and sway

Big leaf light gathering yellow, a green reach, and sky

Held so in place by its underground life

Limbs so surely rooted and reaching symmetrical flight

Leaves green green filtering a highlighted yellow

Unyielding as the life she already knows she wishes to lead

And so, the tree’s not-yet-lightning-struck boughs

Call the teenager out of the house

Summer’s swung open swoon

A vertigo of the future arriving

Climbing barefoot through the sun

Pollen of her own blooming

The hornet hummed under her blowsy pink nightgown

Stung the flower of her knee

The violence of life sometimes, Nature said, out of her hands

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Jami Macarty teaches creative writing at Simon Fraser University and writes essays, reviews, and poetry. Jami’s books: The Long Now Conditions Permit (forthcoming University of Nevada Press, 2025), 2023 Test Site Poetry Series Prize winner; The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award winner; The Whole Catastrophe (2024) and Mind of Spring (2017) from Vallum Chapbook Series, among others. Read Jami’s poetry and reviews, offered in service of poetry’s underrepresented voices, at jamimacarty.com.

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• 04/10 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Chloe Martinez and local poet Ximena Gómez / The BBar at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free

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