Walking home, I pass
an unlit pyre:
tree limbs
sonogrammed in high noon light—
no clutch of molars, no sprig
of hair or nail.
Just branches sloughed
by some sky-seeking neighbor.
Just tinder
a bird alights
once upon.
–
Kathleen Mitchell-Askar holds degrees in English from UCLA and California State University, Northridge. Her work has appeared in DIAGRAM, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Spillway, THRUSH, and elsewhere. She teaches high school English and lives in Sacramento with her three children.