a poem by ariel yelen

Sometimes I Am Like the Flower of Farewell

I think you are the goats she says   

and you are you  

and I think you're afraid of anger

rage is what the goats feel as they stampede towards me   

all because I threw a stick   

why did you throw a stick  

well I was in a field and

I wanted to make a loud sound   

the stick broke in  

two

like the deer 

two halves of its body dragged to the side of the highway   

on the drive to Kerhonkson 

where my friend walks with me through the woods   

and points out the dead leaves   

how it feels to walk amongst them  

they are wet and flat in the dirt   

and I'm just letting them grow as they would  

dark hairs  

dark moods  

I too love those hours of my being   

I too like to watch things ripen

Ariel Yelen's poems have been published in Two Serious Ladies, and the 2014 anthology Shadow of the Geode. She lives in Brooklyn and works as the Community Manager for Bowery Poetry, where she also co-curates the Fantasy Reading Series.