The Judas Tree

Erica Wright

What kind of betrayal blossoms,
scatters its pink across the road?

The only kind I’ve known burns
like grease from a frying pan,

the only pink the skin left behind.
Today I plant rows of beans

in a sun so hot I get a little sick.
Then the sheriff ’s helicopter

passes overhead. Another
escaped convict hunted

like a wolf in a place
where wolves can be hunted.

I’m thinking about the friend
I never call back, her voice

on the message stranger
with each passing year.

Is this betrayal, too?
Forgetting who we once were?

It’s not as hot under the trees.
I can wait here until I’m found.