.jpg)
Laura Ann Reed
​
​
​
​
​​
​Transversal
Older now, I awake
to the morning’s interrogating light.
At the window, the changing same
of the seasons in a garden
filled with what does not belong to me.
A white moth spirals another
in a mid-air mating,
oblivious to the lit wick of time.
A ripe plum tumbles
shy and speechless from its tree.
Like a bright coin,
centermost and gleaming,
the yellow spider attends
to the unwitting fly.
And yet, I see no sign of endings:
the rosebud is still shielded
behind the pleated gates of her kingdom.
Still trusting her army
of thorns to protect her against mortality.
I can almost recall being that young,
that heedless of the autumn rain
battering the lantana, shaking the last petals
from the geranium— so enraptured was I
by my unfurling life.
​
​
​
​
Laura Ann Reed is a Contributing Editor with The Montréal Review. She holds master’s degrees in clinical psychology and in the performing arts. Her poems have appeared in eight anthologies, including Poetry of Presence II, as well as in numerous journals. Her most recent work appears or is forthcoming in The Laurel Review, The Santa Barbara Review, Blue Unicorn, Illuminations, and The Ekphrastic Review. Her chapbook, Homage to Kafka, was published in July 2025.