Fuchsia

That summer in the west I walked sunrise
to dusk, narrow twisted highways without shoulders,
low stone walls on both sides. Hedgerows
of fuchsia hemmed me in, the tropical plant
now wild, centuries after nobles imported it
for their gardens. I was unafraid,
did not cross to the outsides of curves, did not
look behind me for what might be coming.
For weeks in counties Kerry and Cork, I walked
through the red blooms the Irish call
the Tears of God, blazing from the brush
like lanterns. Who would have thought
a warm current touching the shore
of that stone-cold country could make
lemon trees, bananas, and palms not just take,
but thrive? Wild as the jungles they came from,
where boas flexed around their trunks —
like my other brushes with miracles,
the men who love you back, how they come
to you, gorgeous and invasive, improbable,
hemming you in. And you walk that road
blazing, some days not even afraid to die.

Katrina Vandenberg

Double shot - two poems on the eve of the blue moon!

Moon Gathering

And they will gather by the well,

its dark water a mirror to catch whatever

stars slide by in the slow precession of

the skies, the tilting dome of time,

over all, a light mist like a scrim,

and here and there some clouds

that will open at the last and let

the moon shine through; it will be

at the wheel's turning, when

three zeros stand like paw-prints

in the snow; it will be a crescent

moon, and it will shine up from

the dark water like a silver hook

without a fish--until, as we lean closer,

swimming up from the well, something

dark but glowing, animate, like live coals--

it is our own eyes staring up at us,

as the moon sets its hook;

and they, whose dim shapes are no more

than what we will become, take up

their long-handled dippers

of brass, and one by one, they catch

the moon in the cup-shaped bowls,

and they raise its floating light

to their lips, and with it, they drink back

our eyes, burning with desire to see

into the gullet of night: each one

dips and drinks, and dips, and drinks,

until there is only dark water,

until there is only the dark.

Eleanor Wilner

***********************************

Tides

A man on 26th Street sets moon flowers to start

in egg cartons on a table beside his bed.

Soon they will loop around the gray windows louvers

twining sweetness through his dreams.

Close your eyes, give way

and the sheets, yes, your skin,

are her skin and take the voice,

take your own hand with her voice guiding

and here are the flowers opening like time-lapse

photography--tendrils finding the small

pocks in the concrete, close now,

the moon of her face lifts between your thighs.

What is real? The man slapping potting soil

from his hands? A prediction of tides

from the lunar chart of water rings

the carton leaves on the table's wood finish?

And where is she? Whisper her name

and static answers, open the windows

and the silent trumpets of the flowers

dip and rise casually in the air.

Lisa Rhoades

Pesto In August

How many times does this ritual repeat
itself, preparation that begins with sweetness

unlocked by the parting of leaves? How many
women have unpetaled garlic cloves, dripped oil

cold-pressed from olives down a bowl’s curve,
ground the edible seeds of pine with mortar

and pestle until the clay was sweet with resin?
Though the legend speaks of love, in Italy

when a woman let basil’s scent seep from
her clay-potted balcony, she was being modest

when she said the smell would tell a certain man
to be ready only for her flowers and her smile.

Tonight I steam pasta until my wallpaper curls
from the walls, slice heavy globes of tomatoes

that separate in sighs of juice and seed,
then toss them with hot spaghetti and the green

my garden has produced with sun, wind, earth,
moon, rain; I remember another legend,

that a sprig of basil given
in love seals love forever.

A clink of plates, of silverware, an overflow
of wine. Say, Love, I am ready. Come. Take. Eat.

Katrina Vandenberg

Y, Y

You love ‘Y’, not because it’s the first letter

In your family name, but because it’s like

A horn, which the water buffalo in your

Native village uses to fight against injustice

Or, because it’s like a twig, where a crow

Can come down to perch, a cicada can sing

Towards the setting sun as loud as it wants to

More important, in Egyptian hieroglyphics

It stands for a real reed, something you can

Bend into a whistle or flute; in pronouncing it

You can get all the answers you need, besides

You can make it into a heart-felt catapult

And shoot at a snakehead or sparrow, as long

As it is within the range of your boyhood

Changming Yuan