tropism

by Julia Wendell

for Barrett

I lean toward you

like a plant in a window 

leans toward sun.

I lean toward you,

like a shadow to its body,

the way I am drawn to a fire, book in hand,

not afraid of being burned. Not now.

Yearning comes from loss, absence

spilling from the pen.

Night slips in and drowns the light,

the leaning,

the ease of being alone, the way

one of us eventually will be.

A car spins and settles,

light skews

at an unnatural angle.

Boots come tromping through the tall grass

at the verge of the littered highway

to see what has become of me. 

I am learning to lean away.

Julia Wendell’s sixth collection of poems, The Art of Falling, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2022. Another collection, Daughter Days, will be published by Unsolicited Press in 2025. A Pushcart winner and recipient of Fellowships from Breadloaf and Yaddo, her poems have appeared widely in magazines such as American Poetry Review, Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Cimarron Review, and Nimrod. She is the Founding Editor of Galileo Press. She lives in Aiken, South Carolina, and is a three-day event rider.