MARGARET YOUNG
Juniper Questions How the word sounds like universe and why two shrubs cut down decades ago persist in the mindscape, prickly heaps between driveway and perennial bed, two bluegreen castles shadowing the peony, branches drooping, resinous brooms, drapes hiding backyard rabbits, roses, trees and the Pumpkin Man leaned up against the wild cherry between the house and creek. We built him every year using the same old blue clothes stuffed with new fallen leaves, lit his skull that grinned into the night. Between us and the creek, the trees along it we called woods but after leaves fell we could glimpse the lit windows of country houses through them.
POETRY | 113