Late-summer evenings, Pam drags herself back to the brown clapboard duplex on the street of cracked sidewalks. She climbs two flights of stairs, drops her bag on the couch, heads out to her porch—her birdfeeder, her sunflowers, her tomato and mint and butternut squash, all thriving in plastic pots. She feels her shoulders loosen out here, feels herself letting go of her day—eight solid hours tending the frail, helping them walk and shower, gauging their moods, joking, cajoling, catching a slow-motion fall. A job she loves (how glorious, to make an old man laugh!), but after her shift, she needs stillness, solitude.

dragonfly landing
on a fingertip
end-of-day hush

Today, like most days, she settles into her green plastic chair, sips her drink, watches the wind ruffling the maple leaves. But today she stands up again. It’s that one skinny branch, how it scritches and scratches the side of the house. For weeks she’s been meaning to cut that branch back. So today, yes, she’ll finally get it done. Here are her pruning shears. Here, her wooden step-stool. If she leans, she can reach—yes—right there—just a little stretch farther, and she’s got it. But she’s off-balance. The railing wobbles beneath her. The moment hovers—electric, afire.

lit with late-day sun
a maple leaf lets go
astonishment

Jennifer L. Freed’s

first full-length collection, When Light Shifts: A Memoir in Poems, was a 2022 finalist for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize. She is working on a second collection about the aftermath of her mother surviving a cerebral hemorrhage. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and The Orison Anthology. She teaches adult education programs from Massachusetts, USA.

Author’s website: jfreed.weebly.com