By Eve Alexandra
They are everywhere--those sunflowers with the coal heart center. They riot
without speaking, huge, wet mouths caught at half-gasp, half-kiss.
Flowers she promises I'll grow into, sweet gardener,
long luminous braids I'd climb like ladders, freckles scattered
across our shoulders in a spell of pollen. She's sleeping there--on that table
with its veneer slick as a glass coffin. She's fed us fiddleheads, the tine fists
of Brussels sprouts, cupcakes, even the broken song of the deer's neck. Singing.
Flowers everywhere. In my bedroom chaste daisies and the vigilance
of chrysanthemums. Dirt under my nails, pressing my cheek to the shag rug
with its million fingers. You could lose anything: a tooth, Barbie's shoe,
this prayer. She loves me. She loves me not. I stare at my reflection,
a posy of wishes. Morning glory, nightshade, tulip, rhododendron.
In this poem I would be the Wicked Witch and she Snow White. Waiting.
My father talks to me about their lovemaking. My mouth empty
as a lily. I try to remember the diagram. Which is the pistil?
Which is the stamen? Roads of desire circle our house: Lost Nation Severance,
Poor Farm. Branches catch the wings of my nightgown.
There is a crow and the smell of blackberries.
--------
Thursday was entirely about work and chores and a bit of fixing some old jewelry with new wires. I have tracked down a copy of every calendar I've made with photos except 2003, which has been missing since, well, 2003 (and I can't print a new one because Shutterfly no longer uses that template), and my winter clothes are at the front of my closet, minus the black velvet miniskirt that I haven't worn in a decade and the gray blazer with shoulder pads that oh let's not even think about it. So I have pretty much nothing exciting to report.
Evening TV started with "Destiny," the DS9 episode I'm reviewing this week, a very appropriate one since it's one where the parallels between Bajor and Israel are quite obvious. Then it was Beauty and the Beast, which I would like so much better if the detectives could investigate things other than murders on a regular basis, particularly since afterward is Elementary which continues to have great acting but so many mass murderers and serial killers that it's still really not my kind of show. Some photos from the Longwood Gardens chrysanthemum show:
No comments:
Post a Comment