Cottonwoods

 Maybe the trees will tell you ofwater on the plains, pocketsof streams and ditchesand deep taprootswhere life can be sustained. Treesstay in one placeall their lives. They weatherthe wind and rainand blows – stayin one place, they seem to say,and others will crushyour breath and body. Butthey claw at the sky, still hangingon the last leaves – ____Teow Lim Goh’s debut book of poetry Islanders, on the history of the Angel Island Immigration Station, is forthcoming from Conundrum Press in April 2016. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in PANK, The Toast, Guernica, The Rumpus, and Winter Tangerine Review, among other publications.