The sun, fragile and cinnamon,
pushes fingers of fog apart,
offering rare stereopticon
glimpse of garden—
the unconcerned sticks
of dark roses,
the overachieving narcissus,
hollow-bellied
with urgency, struggling
through cold soil.
I pour a second cup,
stir, lick the sugared spoon,
and stare at a pristine page hoping
for a frenetic genesis
in the frozen clay of my brain—
as if the stirring of digestion
and desire could make
ink pour thick and rich
like coffee, and words could
grope and grow
like the fleshy purslane
beginning to crack the sidewalk
or the mint that thrust—
all winter—
its thin yellow fingers
through the stone
into my empty basement
only to dangle limp, pale
and blind with fatigue, to die
above the washer, as brittle
as sun-bleached bones
lined up toward an oasis
in distant untroubled sands.
This poem originally appeared in Juice, Issue 1: Spring 2008.
