“Sea Cove,” oil on panel, by Albert Bierstadt, c. 1890.
Did you know that tree roots hold hands underground
and tree-whisper distress? There are so many reasons:
windstorms, wildfires, swarms of voracious insects.
A scientist explains the reaching differently: a mycorrhizal network mediates
complex adaptive behavior.
I know all those words except one.
Sometimes when there is only one of something it is put in a museum—
sometimes behind glass, other times behind velvet rope.
Rope is similar to string except it’s plied.
Museums make me drowsy.
If I were a curator, I would create an exhibit of words I don’t know. I would put
some behind glass, others behind rope. There would be a separate room for words
I once knew but forgot.
Forgetting is different from having never known.
The first is the ocean, the second is finding a foothold in fast-flowing rapids.
After the doctor called with the results, I rode my bike
to the water’s edge.
Michelle Matz’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Atticus Review, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, New Delta Review, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of the Mary Merritt Henry Prize for Poetry, a semifinalist in The Ledge Press Manuscript Contest, and was awarded an Individual Artist Grant through the San Francisco Arts Commission. Her book Acoustic Shadow was recently published by Main Street Rag.
