Unnamed Tree on Fifth Street by Elizabeth Wilson

It’s mid-February when

I’m overcome with the need

to name it. I’ve searched

field guides, fingered spines

thick as branches,

trying to remember the shape

of its leaves in spring.

All winter I worry

about my memory, my lack

of attention to details:

where, when the last leaf fell,

I put my keys.

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Elizabeth Wilson is a tap dance enthusiast, chronic illness advocate, and Rising Voices of Narcolepsy speaker living in the North Carolina mountains. Her poems have appeared in 13th Moon, Asheville Poetry Review, Clementine Unbound, and Cold Mountain Review.