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Love Like Poplars
The men hang straight and simple
Tossing with the leaves in sharp pulled flashes
Coarse cords dressing up their heads
Follow their souls to a windowed light
A bending airy floor with thin tiled film above its vacuum
And the poplars lull their death
Even the smallest of life bleeds through its seed
As we toyed with a single root
Drilling rain through our feet
Fixed and chilled in a mud plate
Like twirling ants drowned in their burrows
Till the sun burst hot, skin curled on a flat grid
Wired and bathed as we shot atop empty space
The ground sliding up our youth in green porous pith
We wrapped, fused 'round and 'round
Hurling to the earth, casual and listless
Spiraling up again for a lick of dew
The cool injection of breath
We hovered weightless, thin shadows over grass
Till we chose to wither
Like an aged spine hissing, cracking
Cursing heaven and dust
Welcoming snow as though death were our friend
The frost ravaged
We tumbled to earth as broken birds
Grinding us up and dissecting what remained
Spring always walks in with new lovers
Biting at its feet
But it could never forget us
For it buried us in the black of the poplars
And the poplars lull our death
-Previously published in Chrysalis, 2005.,/P>
Johanna Bopp is a piano teacher and writer in the El Paso area. Her passion for literature began
as a small child when given the opportunity to read folktales to a class of high school students. Johanna
is active on the El Paso poetry scene both in written word and performance. Johanna has been published
in issues of El Paso literary journals Chrysalis, Message of the Muse, Newspaper Tree, as well a book
entitled Mezcla. She also conducts writing workshops as part of a community project and is currently
working on publishing a book of her own collected works.
Email: Johanna Bopp
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