Poem of the Week: 'Wild Fig' by Ali Lewis

Ali Lewis's debut pamphlet, Hotel, is just out from Verve Poetry Press, and available here.

Wild Fig

Sometimes I feel I grew you, tended you,
in the same way I've raised seeds,

kidding myself I made it all happen,
when I have seen laden fig trees
grow out of the rest dust of boulders,

when all you ever needed
was light and space and the earth,

which I was not responsible for,
that was simply near me, lying around,

and that you could have got from anyone
who left you the right kind of alone.

Alone, I think there must have been
a last time I sat you at our table

and fed you. Tender sapling, tall fig.
No one ever waters a tree.