About the Feature
Devil’s Beggarticks
Photo by Venti Views on Unsplash
and so like anxiety spiked with glabrous leaves
pointing in all directions it appeared one year :
petioles and leaflets spiraling up in the bare spots
the downed trees left : the rerouted creek cleared
of cottonwood seedlings : so the barbed awns
stuck and spread with animal passing : with casual
latch and easy growth in decimations : the sun
opening a new map for its advance along waters
sudsed with lawn chemicals : as days flowed toward
diagnosis the roils choked on small green apples
dropped early : truly had I not noticed before? : or
was I like beggarticks a thriver in disruption? :
in cyclic over-meddling? : ever after I could not not
see it : burnt-gold florets exuberantly arrayed
About the Author
Radha Marcum is the author of two poetry collections: Pine Soot Tendon Bone (Washington Prize) and Bloodline (NM-AZ Book Award). As a prose writer focusing on health and environment, she has contributed to American Rivers, Outside, and the Wilderness Society. She teaches poetry at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop.