tasting of pine, clear
breath of it, appetite
for feeling spent,
shovel-surge
light, lighter than
it looks, but these
are trees made small.
wind of it, delivery,
spilled out in pieces:
stems, wood-knots,
anything that pushed
back. heave of it,
only the pile was heavy;
not the lift, arm by arm.
that was easy,
the way branches look,
how they just keep
heading out
into it, the fine air
of fir-tips where
that’s all right.

—

Rachel Betesh is a registered nurse, gardener, and mother who writes poems. Her poetry has been featured in The New Yorker and Brink Literary Journal; long-listed for Palette Poetry’s 2022 emerging poet prize; and is forthcoming in Bennington Review.