by Colleen S. Harris
Brightly flowering plants
in easy reach are the most tempting—
the candied pinks and purples
of azaleas, alfalfa, lilac.
Semicircles chewed from lower leaves
of the roses, the redbuds,
the green ash, the Virginia creeper,
all say she has been by this way.
The leafcutter is just a bit darker
than her honeybee cousin,
carving out leaf-moons to cocoon
her children, building her nest
in hollow stems, in tree-nooks,
in the soft umami crumble
of rotted logs. Like a daughter,
she is happy to lie docile in the clover
and let the world move as it will.
Like a daughter, she will not sting
unless you lay hands upon her first.
Colleen S. Harris holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University, serves as a poetry editor at Iron Oak Editions, and works as a university library dean. Author of four poetry collections and four chapbooks, her most recent poetry includes The Light Becomes Us (Main Street Rag, 2025), Toothache in the Bone (boats against the current, 2025), and The Girl and the Gifts (Bottlecap, 2025). Her poems appear in Berkeley Poetry Review, The Louisville Review, and more than 90 others. Follow her work at https://colleensharris.com
Hawaii Pacific Review 