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Exhibit A (a triptych)
poetry by Elizabeth Joy Levinson
Exhibit A (a triptych)
I.
Hold close to the bur oak,
to the long and to the low
branches that beckon
what hairstreak?
what duskywing?
The lilac orange, a bruise
resting on the bark.
II.
That the last of the first
should be the first of the last, should be
a silent heralding, full of leaf
of curled rain
snows in desert homes.
Once, in spring, we couldn’t walk
without pink frogs underfoot
now only white noise, only
soft and even ground.
III.
Desperate as an orange grove
in an ice storm.
How beautiful anything
behind glass becomes
but unseen the cells expanding.
Crackshot of winter takes aim
and maims. The heartwood splinters.
Elizabeth Joy Levinson
Elizabeth Joy Levinson lives,read teaches, and writes on the southwest side of Chicago. She has an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University and an MAT in Biology from Miami University. Her work has appeared in several journals, including Grey Sparrow, Up the Staircase, Apple Valley Review, Hawk and Whippoorwill, Alluvian, LandLocked, and Slipstream. Her first chapbook, As Wild Animals, is available through Dancing Girl Press and her second chapbook, Running Aground, will be available in the fall of 2020.