Mute as the Mouths of Trees

by Louisa Muniz

 
Winter’s sky is bleached in silence.
Outside a red bird perches
 
on the icy fingertip of a branch.
Somewhere beyond the somber sky
 
lies heaven—
            mute as the mouths of trees.
 
Fifteen years you’ve been gone.
I still search for signs—
 
the smell of your perfume, a random coin,
a lockbox of breeze in the room.
 
The year you left I chased your shadow
in the wilderness of dreams.
 
            I’ve yet to friend uncertainty.
 
Listen how the wind pantomimes 
your name in the silent air.
 
Stay, stay, I whisper to the red bird.
Make your nest this way.
 
 
* * * * *

Louisa Muniz lives in Sayreville, N.J. She holds a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Kean University. Her work has appeared in Tinderbox Journal, Palette Poetry, Menacing Hedge, Poetry Quarterly, PANK Magazine, Jabberwock Review and elsewhere. She won the Sheila-Na-Gig 2019 Spring Contest for her poem "Stone Turned Sand." Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. Her debut chapbook After Heavy Rains by Finishing Line Press was released in December, 2020.