Before our move across the country 
we gave away books, clothes, CDs, 
pots and pans, and boxes of stuff 
that lurked in the garage. 
I feel so free without it. 

But O, for my California garden—
the Meyer lemon tree, 
the night-blooming cereus 
and the bonsai Desert Rose 
that followed us from Texas. 

Now in my apartment 
on the Atlantic Ocean 
a six-inch lemon tree, 
grown from a seed, 
is putting out new shoots 
in spite of two feet of snow 
out the window. 

Roseanne Freed

was born and grew up in apartheid South Africa, raised her children in Canada, and lived in the United States for more than 25 years. Last year, she and her husband moved from Los Angeles to the east coast of Canada. Roseanne’s writing has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in Blue Heron Review, Contrary Magazine, Literary Mama, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Naugatuck River Review, ONE ART, Silver Birch Press, The Jewish Writing Project, and Verse-Virtual, among others. Her chapbook, Your Name Is a Poem (Picture Show Press, 2024), tracks the final illness of her daughter, Mahalia, the mother of two young children. Roseanne is honored to be a member of the MacQueen’s Quinterly poetry community.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Seven poems by Roseanne Freed in ONE ART: a journal of poetry (in reverse chronological order, April 2026 through May 2022)

⚡ Ashkenazi Jewish families honor relatives, lyric essay by Freed in Issue 26 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (January 2025); nominated by MacQ for Best of the Net 2025, the Sundress Publications annual athology

⚡ Where’s Jeffrey?, CNF by Freed in Issue 22 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (February 2024); nominated by MacQ for Best of the Net 2025, the Sundress Publications annual athology

⚡ If Grief Is Inside Us, Who Can Measure the Grief of Another? in Issue 19 of MacQ (August 2023)

⚡ Your name is a poem in MacQ-15 (September 2022)