Bronwen Butter Newcott
Outlines
I stand alone in my body
next to you alone
in your body, the children
like wind in their own bodies
still finding shape.
Yesterday I planted
a mountain laurel, flower
of a grandmother
I thought I knew,
before I knew the barrier
of skin, of stories wrapped
as tightly as wicks, waiting.
The magnolia’s soft
unfolding tries
to make me forget,
the honeysuckle bending
over the fence, spring’s
wildfire. But the children
are forming
quiet thoughts as they run,
their own lines
of reasoning. I’d thought
when I named them, I would
know them, the wide
blossoms of their faces
a sure way in.
Bronwen Butter Newcott was born and raised in Washington, DC and currently lives in Southern California with her family. She earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Maryland, has taught high school English, led poetry and art groups for homeless writers, run a local art studio, and written a Middle Grade novel coming out this spring. She spends her days raising her three kids and writing. Her poems have appeared in Image, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, Missouri Review, Smartish Pace, and other publications.
Return to May 2023 Edition
I stand alone in my body
next to you alone
in your body, the children
like wind in their own bodies
still finding shape.
Yesterday I planted
a mountain laurel, flower
of a grandmother
I thought I knew,
before I knew the barrier
of skin, of stories wrapped
as tightly as wicks, waiting.
The magnolia’s soft
unfolding tries
to make me forget,
the honeysuckle bending
over the fence, spring’s
wildfire. But the children
are forming
quiet thoughts as they run,
their own lines
of reasoning. I’d thought
when I named them, I would
know them, the wide
blossoms of their faces
a sure way in.
Bronwen Butter Newcott was born and raised in Washington, DC and currently lives in Southern California with her family. She earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Maryland, has taught high school English, led poetry and art groups for homeless writers, run a local art studio, and written a Middle Grade novel coming out this spring. She spends her days raising her three kids and writing. Her poems have appeared in Image, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, Missouri Review, Smartish Pace, and other publications.
Return to May 2023 Edition