My Daughter Doesn’t Speak to Me

Neither do my cats, the owls burrowing
down the street, the raccoon that competes
with the feral cat for the food I leave out,
the opossums who do the same.

It’s been years since a conversation
didn’t end with lemon seeds
in our mouths, spit out in my face,
those looks that say, “Disappear, bitch.”

But the jatropha are in bloom, even though
they were cut way back, as were the passion
fruit vines, the gardenia, along with
The Bleeding Heart and Wandering Jew.

Life, they say, keeps growing
no matter the cuts, intertwining roots,
tangles of pots that won’t pull apart
rooted to the ground in a bid for permanence.

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Barbra Nightingale's poems have appeared in The Mackinaw, Dunes Review, Chameleon Chimera, Rattle, Limp Wrist,The Liberal Media Made Me Do It (Anthology), SWWIM Every Day, Narrative Magazine (nominated for a Pushcart), Barrow Street, The Georgetown Review, CRIT Journal, Jet Fuel, The Apalachee Review, and elsewhere. Her most recent book is Spells & Other Ways of Flying. She is an Associate Editor with the South Florida Poetry Journal.