The way disease struck
our neighbors’ trees,
but passed over ours, the way
their veins yellowed
and browned, the way the crowns
thinned and leaves
dropped, like the full head
of hair you once lost,
the way fungus infected
an interconnected
system underneath, the way a growth
threatened yours,
the way the disease spread
throughout the roots,
the way a branch of women
in your family succumbed,
the way we asked
ourselves, Why us? having watched tall sentinels
reduced to stumps,
the way I gripped your waist
like a trunk as your wilting
self hugged back my sapling
body, all the while
asking of ourselves
the same.

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Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts.  His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests.  A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which his debut chapbook, This is My Body, was published in 2025.  Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.