Son In This Story the Oaks Are Tremendous 

I’ve read of forests that follow rivers
of legendary strength and beauty,

become lost in mist,
cloud forests.

So the first question
is what lost means.

Your orders came today.
You ship out

in the fall. Lost is now
another kind of question.

I will tell the family
you are cold and afraid.

I will tell the family
you have just reached out
and touched your own
story, as if it were
your own manhood.

First appeared in Copper Nickel

Andrea Read has earned degrees from Rice University, University of Chicago and Lesley University. A recipient of a National Resource Fellowship and a Tinker Foundation Grant, she has taught Spanish and Latin American literature and language at Columbia College, Beloit College, The University of Chicago, and Stanford University. Her poems have appeared in The Painted Bird Quarterly, Third Bed, and FIELD.