This poem was published in The Avenue Journal, Issue X: Dogs
Chelsea
by Karen Paul Holmes
The ginkgo has just let go its leaves—
all that stored sunlight suddenly
circling the black trunk’s feet,
a Magi-gift I needed today.
Last night, Chelsea managed one last bark
at a squirrel. A bark almost young-dog strong.
Two weeks ago, she wouldn’t
have given up until that pest was gone.
Her terrier nose would be rifling
this pile of gold for what prey, who knows?
Her tail would’ve waved like this leaf
still clinging, fanning the silky wind.
Are ginkgoes more glorious in the full of fall?
Or bare like this, their halos on the ground.
Karen Paul Holmes won the 2023 Lascaux Poetry Prize and received a Special Mention in The 2024 Pushcart Prize Anthology. Her books are: No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin, 2018) and Untying the Knot (Aldrich, 2014). Poetry credits include The Slowdown, Verse Daily, Diode, Glass, and Plume. Daughter of immigrants, she was her family’s first generation to attend college and has an MA in Music History. You can find her online on facebook or instagram.
You can purchase The Avenue Journal Issue X: Dogs in paperback at Bookshop.org, or, if you prefer it in digital format, you can download the ebook in .epub format for pay-what-you-can (suggested donation $9) at ko-fi.