Sandra Rivers-Gill
In the Throat of a Tree
After a line in Rachel Eliza Griffiths’ poem “Whipping Tree”
If given in small doses
death will weigh down the throat.
Drowning is tied to a shoulder blade
of gravity. Wait. Hate is as heavy as a fan,
as widespread as contagion is furious.
Heat is compressed until something snaps.
In certain trees there are tangled knots.
The furcula can no longer be wished upon.
Luminous stars are what I dream beneath.
The map of my interior landscape is an emergency.
A response is an urgent call to escape.
Eager hands are hidden wager in abet.
Barbed wire is the accomplice to a bullet
as a bluesy sidewalk is to scat.
If given in just, harmless doses
air will weigh in on its own existence.
Felled trees are premeditated.
The evidence is a burning forest.
Embers scatter to the wind of jive.
The sound of timber is in different ears.
A mother knows the grave of her child’s cry.
It sounds like a dose of less wait.
Until she mourns the loss of lullabies
she will cradle the song of every breached tree.
If given in small doses
death will weigh down the throat.
Drowning is tied to a shoulder blade
of gravity. Wait. Hate is as heavy as a fan,
as widespread as contagion is furious.
Heat is compressed until something snaps.
In certain trees there are tangled knots.
The furcula can no longer be wished upon.
Luminous stars are what I dream beneath.
The map of my interior landscape is an emergency.
A response is an urgent call to escape.
Eager hands are hidden wager in abet.
Barbed wire is the accomplice to a bullet
as a bluesy sidewalk is to scat.
If given in just, harmless doses
air will weigh in on its own existence.
Felled trees are premeditated.
The evidence is a burning forest.
Embers scatter to the wind of jive.
The sound of timber is in different ears.
A mother knows the grave of her child’s cry.
It sounds like a dose of less wait.
Until she mourns the loss of lullabies
she will cradle the song of every breached tree.
Biography
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Sandra Rivers-Gill is an Ohio native. She is a poet, writer, and playwright and performed her first one woman show in 2020. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Dissonance Magazine, POP UP Poetry, The Kerf, Of Rust and Glass, Common Threads, Flights, and Mock Turtle Zine and has received numerous writing awards from Lourdes University Poetry Jam, Toledo Museum of Art Ekphrastic Writing, Toledo City Paper Ode to the Zip Code, and Promedica Revealing Hunger Spoken Word Competitions. In addition to her work as a panel judge for local poetry competitions, Sandra has served as a board member for Naomi Inc., and poetry workshop facilitator for non-profit organizations in her community. She is the editor of “Dopeless Hope Fiends,” and is a recipient of the Toledo Arts Commission Accelerator Grant. Sandra is a Master of Liberal Studies candidate at the University of Toledo. More about the writer at sandrariversgill.com.
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