Poetry by Liz G. Fisher

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The Language of the Evergreen

In the language of trees, evergreen does not mean forever, 
though it feels that way when the evergreen is young, the fog
of youth, painting the many seasons ahead the color of always.

Later the tongue learns longer does not mean long enough.
When the squirrels speak of the evergreen, they see a map pointing toward shelter,
branches like open hands. My father started planting

evergreens the year I was born. I do not know when he planted his last. 
In the language of parents and children, evergreen sounds like taken
for granted, another holiday

next year, always someone to carve the turkey, check your tires the moment
you pull in the driveway, your headlights searching
for something familiar. There’s no word for when the needles

of the Christmas tree turn brown, and absence
litters the floor of the house you grew up in. When the word home is blood
on your tongue, teeth worrying at your lip as you mourn

your old definition of dependable. In the new translation, father
means gone. I don’t know when my father planted his last evergreen. 
But I know someone pulled it out of the ground,

made a home of their own in the dirt that marked the grave of
the years he was mine. I know, when they saw the trees had been pulled 
from the land, the squirrels must have felt 

like they’d been saying home wrong for all these years, must have questioned
the meaning of solid ground, must have scrambled for somewhere else
they could find shelter. 




​
Spring Blossom

When the bowl with the green daisies becomes shards 
on my kitchen floor, I tiptoe barefoot 
over the sharp edges of yesterday. 

I grab the broom and wish 
for a better grip on history or a softer landing
like the faded blue carpet in the living

room where Dad read the newspaper while I watched
Darkwing Duck, ate Fruity Pebbles
out of the bowl with the green daisies

I would unwrap twenty years later in my first
adult apartment, the bowl’s matching pieces wrapped individually in old
newspapers by my mother’s careful 

hands. Why couldn’t I have been more careful? Remembered home
was in the past and the past was fragile, almost impossible 
to put back together. When my mother was in the hospital,

just five months after my father’s funeral, 
my brother, sister, and I, paced separate edges of the waiting room
in and out of each other’s orbits, the cracks already beginning to show.





Chickens Dream in Color

Your eyes were stained glass
lit by the sun when you told me
about the chickens that roam the streets 

of Oahu. Later, I'd learn about the hurricane. 
Domestic birds lost in the jungle coupling 
with wild chickens, birthing

freedom and a new definition
of home. I dream your cheeks a shocking
pink, the color of the mums

on the altar at your funeral. Behind you, a full choir
of wild chickens. I shade my eyes against the brightness 
of you and your feral feathered companions, anchored 

now to something beyond home. Time 
laps at my ankles. The corners of your mouth lurch 
upward as I drift, my fingers slipping as I grasp

at the peace I knew before I picked up the phone to Mom’s tears
flooding the line. When you got back from Oahu, you picked
us up at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I ran

for the open invitation of your arms. 
That was the you in the dream, when the unexpected
was still your best friend. I wake in my childhood

bedroom to the echo of you, a hymn
I know every word to. My skin soaked
with regret like holy water, like the start of a hurricane. ​

Liz G. Fisher (she/they) has loved writing since the 3rd grade when they wrote their first book titled “The Day Candy Fell From the Sky” about a candy-loving duck on the best day ever. She’s still exploring the world and imagining a better one through her words. They live in Michigan with their two cats, Ace and Marcie. You can find her on Twitter @Liz_G_Fisher.

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