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Royalty
Graham Murtaugh

—after reading Mary Oliver

Late spring cherry blossoms hang
fat on the branch,
weighed down
with their effortless beauty.

Oh to be so confident,
so thoughlessly
well-dressed.

I am weighed down, too, knowing
they will fall soon—
a pale pink varnish
gracing my front walk,

making way
for the royalty
of rain.

—
Graham Murtaugh is a licensed mental health counselor and unlicensed poet writing from the ancestral lands of the Puyallup people in what is now Tacoma, WA. He has published in several journals and released a chapbook, There Is No Safety (Self-Titled Press, 2013).

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Have you read these poems:
Trifle by R. A. Allen
When I Talked with the Learn’d Astronomer by Gerald Friedman

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