Pantoum after Five Years in Prison

1 Minute Read Time

A field of fireweed, long stemmed plants with little purple flowers. — Photo by K8 on Unsplash

In the hotel room near Airport Way 
Green flowers in the bedspread 
Whisper to me about loss
And the souls who have slept here.

Green flowers in the bedspread, 
I am suddenly one with you
And the souls who have slept here 
Waiting for breakfast.

I am suddenly one with you:
I know how it is in hell forever 
Waiting for breakfast
Under the blasted tree.

I know how it is in hell forever, 
The fireweed ripening
Under the blasted tree,
The dead moon dropping . . .

The fireweed ripening 
What came before,
The dead moon dropping 
Arrows of old sunlight.

“What came before?” 
(I ask this of the walls.) 
“Arrows of old sunlight
And the green flowers blooming.”

I ask this of the walls: 
Whisper to me about loss
And the green flowers blooming
In the hotel room near Airport Way.

Alex Tretbar

is a Writers for Readers Fellow with the Kansas City Public Library, where he teaches free writing classes to the community. His poems and nonfiction appear or are forthcoming in Kenyon Review, Colorado Review, Meridian, SAND, Poetry Northwest, Southern Humanities Review, Bat City Review, Full Stop, and elsewhere.

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