WEBVTT

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Come back to those, I think.

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So at some point, I'm hoping in
June, but maybe it'll be July,

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this poem gets published
in The New Yorker.

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So yeah, we're just
waiting on a pub date.

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"American Pokeberry."

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Thrashers and cardinals
dart through the brush,

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through the season.

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Trees begin their letting go as
we walk along the depot trail.

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Bikers and runners
pass like pearls,

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stringing us to this wild
chandelier of a plant.

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Magenta stalks, purple black
berries, cartoonish overripe.

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Poke salad, you call it, toxic.

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Yet you crush a few
between your fingers,

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Streak them under your
eyes like war paint;

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A boy again, unafraid.

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For the rest of the day, I
live inside that gesture,

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A small delight in
the age of grief.

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Runners waving good morning,

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A fawn feeding in the woods,

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A black cat crossing the path,

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Weed of old spells and sweet
poison keeps me from myself,

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From the thing that
calls me to sorrow.

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I must have called to it
once, to its yellowing,

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Heart-shaped leaves,
and it remembered.

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[APPLAUSE]