Tonight the light turns
its back, the gold blues and blackens
the trees’ reaching arms
that hold, as dancers do,
the ringed emptiness
before them, like women
holding out to their children
their longing. He turned
her into a tree for running
from another
he. Shiver
of sunlight in the boughs.
–
Ayelet Amittay is a psychiatric nurse practitioner and poet in Eugene, Oregon. Her work appears in the Jewish Literary Journal, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pendemics, and others. She is the recipient of fellowships from TENT and the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing.