Daffodils

In the library’s parking garage, I found a poem
shaped like a woman
slumped over the front seat of her SUV
with gray hair
shrouding death-dull eyes
and her hands 
still
reaching
for something she never quite
grasped, hands
already cold
already blue
already hardening with rigor mortis
while in the garden beds
just beyond the concrete barricade
the daffodils
had already moved on
already pushed up their green fingers
already blushed their green fingers gold with sun
already begun to bloom
already begun to die 
and what more could I do 
what more can I ever do but
write some lines that keep them all 
tender, and
bright, and 
alive.

89 Paper Clips

He entered the library with empty hands splayed open and asked us 
for a paper clip.   

We gave him one  
that was rust-resistant and polished to shine,  
a small star   
that he rubbed  
carefully 
between leathered fingers 

then tucked 
into a knapsack 
with the rest of his life 

before confessing 
quietly 
I don’t want to live. 

We too had been thinking again 
about the jammed printer  
in the lobby, 
the loneliness  
of an empty page 
meant to carry wishes. 

After his words  
gave weight to our own empty hands 

we counted together 

ten pages yet to queue, 

eighty-nine stars still in the box,  

almost one-hundred reasons  

to think we could do this, we could
come back tomorrow, 
something here  

could be saved. 

Tuesdays

It’s Tuesday 
when I first meet 
these identical twins
who share a house
and a library card,
these women
I know only 
by the books  
they ask for, the ones  
I’ve been meaning 
to read   

and it’s Tuesday again
(weeks later)
when they give me 
a bag of 

antique Christmas tree ornaments  
hand-stitched bookmarks and  
a framed poem, dated 1841  

and ask me 
to keep safe 
the life  
they are cleaning out 
to make space for 
another

and it’s Tuesday still   
(months later) 
when I catalog  
their obits 
and wonder 
when exactly 
they knew they were  
dying 

and now it’s Tuesday now 
(years later) 
as I empty   
at last 
the drawers of my desk 
and wonder  
who in my life 
I can trust 
with this
bag of 

antique Christmas tree ornaments  
hand stitched bookmarks and  
a framed poem, dated 1841.

Tracie Renee (she/her) is a librarian, a Publishers Weekly book reviewer, and a BOTN-nominated writer who lives and dreams in sort-of Chicago. Her poem, “Pre-Existing Conditions,” earned second place in the 2025 Passionfruit Poetry Prize competition. Find Tracie in HAD and Orange Blossom Review.

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