POEM: The Dogwood + 7 poems by Elise Powers

The Dogwood

It’s early June and every morning
the dogwood,
a cumulus of fluffy white flowers
outside my bedroom window,
fools me into thinking it has snowed.
Funny, how the mind’s branches
bend toward what it knows—
sees piles of white and thinks winter,
hears silence and thinks absence.
How happiness,
if it arrives too gently—
weightless as a hummingbird
perched on the spire of the world—
can feel like a sleight of heart.

Stones Beneath the Sand

While walking the beach,
I heard an old man say to his friend,
I mean, I’m still grieving over
my high school sweetheart.
It wasn’t a confession,
but a fact—clear as the waves
are restless, breaking like breath.
His friend didn’t answer right away,
simply nodded, like of course,
of course some things stay
and settle deep,
stones beneath the sand
that shape the shore.
Meanwhile, the ocean folds itself
over like an endless blanket,
clearing the strand,
then bringing it all back.

The Lilacs Are in Bloom

and once again I am reminded
how every perfect thing—
the tiny, four-petaled florets,
watercolored together in dribbling
lavender plumes; the sweet, milky
scent of my daughter’s newborn
breath, the robin’s-egg weight
of her so impossibly light on my chest;
the flutter of inspiration, breathtaking
as a butterfly migration, passing
through only when you’re lucky
enough to find yourself in its path—
is perfect not in spite of its brevity
but because of it,
because it urges us to pay attention,
to hold it with two trembling hands,
to feel the beauty and the loss
all at once.

Even Here

I watch from the corner chair
as you kiss your grandma’s forehead,
your thumb stroking her hairline
with a tenderness that stings my eyes;
watch as you remind her of all the times
she played catch with you in the Seattle rain,
how much those wet afternoons meant,
how you’ll do the same with your kids;
watch as you press your cheek to hers,
whispering I love yous and thank yous;
watch the way your eyelashes flicker
like candlewicks in a gentle wind
when you don’t know what to say,
when you study her face each time
she closes her eyes; and I understand,
seeing love laid bare like this, spread across
the room like all those Christmas dinners
crammed into her basement—
folding tables end to end,
mismatched tablecloths from years past—
that sorrow this full is only possible
because love made a home there first,
passed from hand to hand like a warm plate.
How even here, it keeps feeding us.

I Am Eating a Handful of Figs

and I think about how I can’t eat a fig
without also eating a fig wasp.
I pinch each swollen bell in two,
autopsy the punch-berry guts
for wings or antennae
or a black and amber ghost.
I do this—live my life like I might
bite into a stinger.
Better safe than sorry,
I hear myself saying.
But the thing about figs
is they aren’t meant
to be eaten cautiously—
so worried about the potential yuck
you never taste the sweetness.
This, too, is how I’ve approached
so many of life’s sweetnesses:
splitting them open to inspect for loss
before letting the juice touch my tongue.
It’s not that I want to be afraid—
only that I’ve spent so long
bracing for sorrow
I’ve forgotten how to recognize joy.
Still, I want to trust the fruit.
I want to eat the whole fig,
wasp and all.

Humans Are the Only Species Known to Blush

Despite the great lengths we pace
to appear calm and composed,
our thin skins of need betray us
in tenderness,
as if the plague of apathy
never reached the blood,
as if the mutinous emotions
simmering beneath the surface
can’t help but revolt against
the guarding of the heart,
a flare of vulnerability
shot straight through the shell
like a warning
or a prayer—
a rose flush of I’m still here,
a chest rush of I care, I care.

A Broken Rule

I learned that people were never meant to see their own faces
and now every mirror feels like a broken rule,
a door swung open to a room I was never supposed to enter.
The thing is, a swallow does not glimpse herself
mid-flight and spend the rest of the day smoothing her feathers
or questioning the grace of her swoop,
and I was never meant to witness
the curve of dark brown pores that frame my aquiline nose,
or the precise way my mouth folds around a name.
What good does it do me to see that my features
are not perfectly symmetrical? I have memorized myself
too well, learned my face more intimately
than my mother’s, my sister’s, my lover’s,
when I was only supposed to see my own eyes
reflected back through shining pond water—
existing in motion, in laughter, in breath,
then vanishing from myself the moment
a fish breaks the surface, swallowing
my vanity whole before I drown in it.

Orogenesis

I forgot
to buy paper
plates, so dishes
pile in the sink, one
on top of another on
top of another, sliding
and colliding, a convergence
of all our busy lives. The night
grows longer and the mountain taller,
evidence that we are too together to worry about
the mess, just as we should be, if only for a few hours.

Elise Powers received a BA in English Literature from Western Washington University. Her poems reflect on identity, womanhood, and the ordinary moments that make up a life. Her work has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies including Gather and Only Poems, and has been shortlisted for the Central Avenue Poetry Prize, awarded second place in the Black Horse Review Poetry Contest, and nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. Her debut poetry collection, The Size of Your Joy, is forthcoming from Central Avenue Publishing in spring 2026. She lives in Seattle with her husband and daughter, where she writes, collects sea glass, and savors life’s tender joys. Find more of her work on Instagram @elisepowerspoet and on Substack at Two Raw Sugars.