Garden
The woman dissolves the sweet pill under
her tongue. Rose petals on eyelids, thick, velvety
stranger in the garden than the birds with
their bead-bright eyes. She can hear the hush
that is the loneliness of the blood in
the body, what it is to discover that boundary,
tauter than the skin on water, tougher,
what seals you. She can remember when she
believed she was sister to the flamboyant tree and
that the garden was safe for her alone.
There were ferns ribboned in sienna and umber,
a green like a light cut down the
middle and under all was plum, violet, grape.
By the far wall, the lime trees smelled
of age. In the fountain, the carp rose with their blown
mouths to the surface of the water where
she fed them day-old bread. And deep among
the coffee trees and creeping vines, the pale boy,
sightless statue, shining in the dark. The earth
was made of cinnamon and the age of the leaves and
the day she saw the ants strip the wren bare
in moments; it had broken its wing and they ate
it resolutely, shining lines of them like a miniscule
army. And this all happened in silence.
– sheila black