Natalie Homer

After a Windstorm

A pastel plastic playhouse nestles upside down
in the wild hedge, Wizard of Oz style

and trees, uprooted,     lie across the road
or recline on powerlines           dancers dipped back.

The ones you expect to go down
are never the ones that do. 

I fell easily from           You have plenty of time
to         You’re not getting any younger. 

For future reference I will accept unsolicited advice
from the wild violets on the hill, only.

I said too much, too soon. Gave myself away
too easily         again.

The pair of stars in the western sky
who keep me company on my drive home

the ones I privately call            twin stars
though they are not identical—just two

in the same area, in an otherwise blank sky
the green-black color of trick ink—

it turns out                   are not stars at all.

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Natalie Homer is the author of Under the Broom Tree (Autumn House Press). Her recent poetry has been published in The Journal, Cream City Review, Potomac Review, Josephine Quarterly and others. She received an MFA from West Virginia University and lives in southwestern Pennsylvania.