Keepsakes
In the back flap
Of my billfold
Three leaves,
Three tufts of cypress
Pressed, soft,
One for us each,
From that first taste
Of wild, your fire heart,
Tongue wagging,
Eyes to the wind
Your fur lifting
With the weeds
Gone now, so gone,
And I reach to catch
Them as they fall
From behind receipts
Faded, ink forgotten,
Soft, still green,
still falling.
I’m still falling.
Sam Calhoun is a writer and photographer living in Elkmont, AL. The author of the chapbook “Follow This Creek” (Foothills Publishing), and a collaborative work “The Hemlock Poems” (Present Tense Media), part of the Conservation Through Art: Saving Alabama’s Hemlock program and exhibit. His poems have appeared in Pregnant Moon Review, Westward Quarterly, Eratos, Boats Against the Current, and other journals. Follow him on Instagram @weatherman_sam, or his website, www.weathermansam.com.
