Deborah Leipziger is an author, poet, and advisor on sustainability. Born in Brazil, Ms. Leipziger is the author of several books on sustainability and human rights. Her second collection of poems, Tell Me, was published in 2026 by Lily Poetry Review Books. Her work appears in numerous anthologies, including The Nature of our Times and Tree Lines: 21st Century American Poems. Her poems have been published in ten countries in such magazines as Revista Cardenal, Inkwell, The Bombay Literary Magazine, On the Seawall, and Salamander.

Deborah Leipziger

Summer of Leaving

We wander into your garden.
You gather zinnias for me
to celebrate, to mark absence,
in a few weeks, your daughter and mine
will leave home.

Magenta    maize    orange   coral,
the petals chubby fingers
curling   opening   grasping.

You say:
you must cut them back,
so they will grow.

Under a parasol,
you pick white phlox for my bouquet,
dark red-purple gladioli.

Heat makes everything buoyant.
We float on summer.

You cut the top of a milk carton, fill it
with water
for my long journey home.

­— Deborah Leipziger