by Laine Derr
Near the end of life, days spent pruning
cherished flowers, she recounts how
a father, medium-rare, smelled of whiskey
and cigars. How her better half, rolling
away, unearthed a much better half. How
she rustles bushes for hiding quails –
aching for topknots. How leaders, hood
hustlers, born from broken beds, live
every day to the shortest. And how she’s
nurtured figures of speech: a floating girl,
a tulip tree, a garden of pills and papers.
Laine Derr holds an MFA from Northern Arizona University and has published interviews with Carl Phillips, Ross Gay, Ted Kooser, and Robert Pinsky. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming from Chapter House, ZYZZYVA, Hollins Critic, Oxford Magazine, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.