I’ve watched you die
for a decade or more
each spring I consider
the chainsaw in the shed
golf ball-size termite holes
wounds that look painful
but somehow you produce
flowers white flowers
every couple of seasons
a pear or three
that change my mind
evidence of your fight
is the humane gesture
to chop you down?
but each spring
your faint resurrection
***
Jason Melvin received a gimmicky T-shirt from his teenage daughter on Christmas with a picture of one large fist fist-bumping a much smaller fist. The caption read, “Behind every smart-ass daughter is a truly asshole Dad”. It fit. His work has recently appeared in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Olney, Terror House, Bombfire, Anti-Heroin Chic, Zero Readers, Drunk Monkeys and Sledgehammer, among others. He was nominated for a Pushcart by Outcast and Bullshit Lit. He was named second runner up for the Heartwood Poetry Prize 2021. He can be found on Twitter @jason5melvin and on his website here.
***
image: MM Kaufman
Rejection Letters 