The Book of Foundlings

by Carolyn Hembree

among torn spirals
drawing faces

an only child
found in the woods

felt understories
of trees within

the book of foundlings
sewn by hand

prints of herds
grazing near trees

spiral buds
within felt close

other arboreal
voices bled through

a sheet of rain
trees within the book

of foundlings
cones open seed sleeves

pine hems
cursive root hairs

of siblings drawn
felt her script

illuminate the blows
colonies underline

trees shade
overheard dream

a croon among the stems
they are sewing her face now

found in the woods
light paged through

 

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About the Author:

Carolyn Hembree’s poetry collection, Skinny, came out from Kore Press in 2012. In 2016, Trio House Books published her second collection, Rigging a Chevy into a Time Machine and Other Ways to Escape a Plague, winner of the Trio Award and the Rochelle Ratner Memorial Award. Her work has appeared in Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, The Journal, Poetry Daily, and other publications. She comes from Tennessee and lives in New Orleans.