Poetry by Kelly Ward

     Justin Meissen CC





Elegy for a Cumbersome Flower

I stopped
where I stood when I saw
you were gone.

Is it too early to weep,
on a Monday morning?

Chopped to the root, your branches, leaves
and purple flowers
collected by slender fingers of windfall 
                 as groundskeepers carried away 
                 your remnants.

On some days, your touch 
is sometimes 
                 all I feel 
from another                      living being.

Or rather--was felt. 
You have been cut down.

Walking up the hill to my office,
crouching beneath the crook of your arm,
the fingers of your leaves gliding gossamer
across my cheek.
                  Your touch was never 
                  unwarranted.

I welcomed it, especially on the days 
when I felt myself            alone.
The scrape of your branches 
on the backs of my knuckles.
I would brush your leaves 
out of my eyes, politely.

Let it be known I never thought 
you were that bumbling word.
Who was the one that called you cumbersome?
Who was the one that asked you to be cut down?

I enjoyed your breadth, the breath
of how you thrived
and shook 
with every lick of wind.
Woody stems, soft purple flowers
—your leaves so green it was like 
you knew
the chlorophyll color 
of my eyes.

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Love is a Room in Loneliness Forest

and it is eaten by the teeth 
of kudzu

the room’s many-colored doors 
are shut tight against me

cerulean saffron
carnelian emerald
moss drapery, tree loam--
                 sunshine scraped
                 what majesty waits
                 inside that vine-covered room? 

I hear the whispers, chuckles, sighs
on the other side

the doors

try to pry open the doors--

pluck splinters out of fingers
—suck the hurt away--

why am I not allowed in?

how can I write about love
                 when I have never been in 
                 that room?

soil grows soft 
around my feet, 
tongues on ankles--
                 swallowing me into
                 warm, earth dark

maybe I don’t write about love at all

write what you know, a voice tells me

then I will
I know this Forest quite well
I know this quiet isolation
I know what it is
    
                 to be lonely
                 to be a freak
    
                 to believe with a certainty
                                  that a blue-jay love
        
                                  is something no one can
                                  ever hold onto

                                  watch it flit into the room
                                  through cracked open windows
        
                                  how its heart must flutter--
                                  in a fleeting clasp

                 I know 
                 that my thoughts 
                 can’t stop growing

in this forest                        of my mind

kudzuchokinggreenencroachingclimbinghungryeating 

                 consume me 
                 consuming--
    
                  kudzu can only be contained                      by fire

burn its vines                       back 
to the ground
stunt its growth
burn the room down
let me taste the ashes
and chew through this kudzu
myself

I will never step foot inside that room
anyway

let sorry roots weep

​


Kelly Ward is an emerging Appalachian writer and a fiction candidate in West Virginia University’s MFA program. Her work has appeared with Appalachia Book Company, among others. Follow her on X @hollerlynnward.
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