Human Leaves

By Olivia Hebert

It’s all so familiar

How the shadows land on each leaf

How bright life sits just above its melancholy brother

The bugs are selective 

So next door to complete wholeness

Lies a skeleton of a thing

Eaten to almost nothing 

Perky stiff youths reach out

With shameless assertion

And down the road 

Fat heavy grandmothers

Droop in the drowsy afternoon

“What’s the point” pointing them downward

All of them veined, straining for sun,

For rain

When a breeze comes, the whole earth shudders

Olivia Hebert is an actor and poet from Dallas, Texas, based in New York. Recently, she developed her writing as a graduate acting student at New York University where she wrote and performed her autobiographical piece, She Reigns.