Plum Tree Cento

Isn't every poem
an unfinished love poem, the needle

making a new hole to fix the old?
I come to you the way the half moon

comes into the yard—I could be more whole
but it lands on the roof of the next house, singing.

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born out of nothing. I need a poem

about happiness I haven't written yet,
even though all I want

is what I already have. Nothing
different, just more. So sit with me

under the plum tree and trace our lifelines
together—how they branch,

how they sing.






Lines from Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Alegria Barclay, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Naomi Shahib Nye, Li-Young Lee, Kyla Jamieson, Mondi Sbeity, Michael Simms, and Jessica E. Pierce (Taken from Love Is for All of Us, James Crews and Brad Peacock, editors).

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Janet MacFadyen is the author of three full-length collections, most recently State of Grass (Salmon Poetry 2024), with a new collection, Love Letters to the Wild, forthcoming from Dos Madres Press in 2025. Honors include a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant, a residency in Cill Rialaig, Ireland, and a 7-month Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center fellowship. Her poetry appears widely. She is the managing editor of Slate Roof Press, a poetry chapbook collaborative. See slateroofpress.com.