Last Place
It has taken me
this long to realize
how the woods behind
my childhood home
where I loved to play
alone could make me
feel just as forlorn
as that single trillium
I found pushing through
the lush carpet of lichen
circling the foot of that
southern yellow pine,
which has turned out
to be the last place
I would ever see
that great shy pileated
or chance to hear
its heavy hammering.
Margaret B. Ingraham's poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Mount Hope, Nonconformist, THINK, and more. Ingraham is the recipient of an Academy of American Poetry Award and a Sam Ragan Award.