A Rib Becomes a Branch

Poem
August 2025
The pileated who owns my voice
vacates my shrieks to hollows 
for wood ducks


ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED:

LEON Literary Review
August 2025
https://leonliteraryreview.com/julie-esther-fisher-a-rib-becomes-a-branch/




IN HER OWN VOICE

Poetry lives not only on the page, but also in breath, silence, and sound.



A rib becomes a branch
an earlobe an acorn
my teeth, the serrate edge of a leaf  
See my feet, club moss
Even my dandruff appears in
dusty lichen
Somewhere out here are my eyes too
my liver as feather in the blood
of a crest
The pileated who owns my voice
vacates my shrieks to hollows 
for wood ducks

Beneath me 
surgeon ants poise to amputate
injured legs
when memory, my marrow
passes on its heavy foot

What am I next to be 
The purple hood, the white lip and spur
of the showy lady’s slipper
a horned fungus beetle 
ready to feign death when threatened
Or likely just this humble hobblebush 
recalling in its heart-shaped leaves
the rumor that once was me

FROM THE ARCHIVE

Stories remembered.

Poems discovered.

A growing collection of
published poems and stories.