Poetry by Joan Leotta

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The Crepe Myrtle—All That Remains

A small indentation in the road, 
notable for a splendid
fuchsia crepe myrtle tree 
marks where, likely, at one time, 
a driveway began, a mailbox waited 
for letters. 
After many trips, my eyes
Distinguish among the various weeds
a thin line that was likely,
the path to a house that
long ago succumbed to nature. 
Like the flag of a defeated land, that
fuchsia crepe myrtle still 
celebrates a time 
when children played here 
while waiting for the school bus, 
where the husband’s tractor 
hauled bales of cotton, tobacco, or hay
out onto the road to market,
and the mailbox waited for letters.
Someone chose to mark
that place with beauty,
with the generous spectacle
of abundant color, joy that
thrives in the sultry heat of 
southern summer.
The house, the people,
are gone now but every hot,
and hazy day, my heart is
lightened by the beauty they
left that marks my way, 
reminding me that 
when all else is gone,
love remains.

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Joan Leotta is a writer and story performer. Her articles, essays, short stories, and poems are widely published. Her poetry has been published  in Anti-Heroin Chic, The Ekphrastic Review, When Women Write, Wilda Morris Blog, Poetry Superhighway, and others.
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