Green

“Green is the most magical color,” she said, surprising me as we sat together on the back porch in the summer evening. The sun had gone pale, blueblack clouds like cliffs in the sky, and all around us, the trees fidgeted in the faint breeze. Tulip poplars huddled inside the neighbor’s fence, a shortleaf pine puffed its wide chest, white maples held hands at the end of the street, American sycamores elbowed above the crease of neighboring roofs, and a crowd of oaks and hickories lined the boundary of the neighborhood, playing catch with birds. She’d spent the summer eulogizing the brilliant white petals of our early-blooming lily, seeking out the brightest orange marigolds from the local home improvement store, counting the yellow ribbons of the echinaceas, awaiting the blue bouquets of the hydrangeas, so it surprised me when she said, “it’s the color when things are healthy, thriving.” “Living,” I said, maybe underwhelmingly, but I wonder what she knew then, her bare feet on the rain-dampened porch boards, her eyes still green.

DEVON NEAL

Devon Neal (he/him) is a Kentucky-based poet whose work has appeared in many publications, including HAD, Stanchion, Stone Circle Review, Livina Press, and The Storms, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. He currently lives in Bardstown, Kentucky with his wife and three children.