Toppled Potted Palm

Abstract

Toppled Potted Palm J. D. McClatchy (bio) As if its hair were cascadingOver a tearful plea, it sobs on the stone Floor about what we can only guess.Its wimpled canopy is wayward and puffy, The branches, now backturned, disclosingHow windscald has for weeks blistered their lips. The trunk has come dislodged from its tub,The white plastic hollow shadowed by the gap Between the real and the unreal.If its roots knew better they would grow up Toward a freedom that will get nowhere,But they too seem only to have surrendered To the givens of wind and rain and allThe ordinary ways we are brought to the ground. [End Page 164] J. D. McClatchy J. D. MCCLATCHY has written eight books of poetry, most recently Plundered Hearts: New and Selected Poems (Knopf, 2014), four collections of prose, including Sweet Theft: A Poet's Commonplace Book (Counterpoint, 2016), and edited dozens of books. He has also written seventeen libretti performed at opera houses around the world. He teaches at Yale, where he serves as editor of The Yale Review. Copyright © 2017 J. D. McClatchy