Tuesday, April 4
STALK, DON'T & PETAL
Ismene, I saw him reach for you, lay out
flat his hand for you, I saw him bluebells
& cockleshells, my girl bent over the
garden wall to contrive to gather flowers
for the hall, to put into her mother’s hand
& I thought she might fall straight in,
tumble long over, pricked among the rose
thorns and the briar, hair caught in a noose
& skirts flying. but she didn’t and she
wasn’t and they weren’t. stayed at the hip
on the stone she reached clear over, breasts
& bone falling forth and she plucked
clean at the root the lily white as and the
gowan and in one fast hand bound them
& wrapped them at the stalk with her
hand and carried them upright like a prayer
coming. it went like this: I am no one’s but
& yours, I am no one’s but yours, I am
no one’s and yours. when you reached back,
when you fell at the waist like a sun in a blind
& he couldn’t see you then for eyes, but
knew you near, smelt the dank blood on your
animal parts and sought to bring you with him
& to live in his blindspot like two thrushes
throated on a wire, we sing, we sing, we sang,
all feet dangling and wings lame, we have sung
& beaks open like pits of dead fire, embers
black with red and glowing, we will have sung,
we would have sung, stay your lips, stalk, don’t
& petal over, bloom, don’t & fall, don’t &.
(Karen Elizabeth Bishop)