Ronda Broatch
How to Make Plum Dumplings
Pluck them
purple under dusky coats,
polish against thigh,
take a bite —
Ah. Now hold
the stoneware bowl
swollen with gems
to your breast,
sit on the porch,
inhale the bluing-
to-indigo sky,
invite
twilight to your table,
lap spilling over
with ovals. With one
arced flick,
liberate the pit,
(but leave the skin),
heal again whole.
Center in dough,
fold corners,
massage between palms
until seamless, smooth.
Drop into blue
enameled pot, flame hot,
flesh yielding, skin
bleeding its night shade
crimson to aubergine—.
breathe in steam.
When risen, tender,
slip from water,
christen
in crumb and butter,
lover, in cinnamon
sugar, and a lick
of cream.
First appeared in the Atlanta Review, spring 2007
I Dream a House with Many Floors
more stories than my own
to explore, with a view
above the holly tree,
the yew.
Nights, as a child
I flew through the living
room and kitchen, mostly,
hair brushing ceiling.
Often I’d soar
out of the window, skim
rooftops, tops of firs
and the apple wood,
in search
of heavenly elevation.
A midnight height
to house
chambers like the hidden
room behind the wardrobe,
pale light breathing green
through a simple window
obscured by trees.
There,
in the treasured gloom:
A babble of books
in a foreign tongue.
Woolen coats in repose,
sheathed in sheets and moth wings.
Velvet smoothed with use,
hats lined with tattered
thoughts trail their plumage
to the floor.
A finch’s discarded wing,
a single black shoe.
Discovered, they loosed
my longing for flight,
for landings spanning
beyond what I knew,
a God I could grasp,
a face to hang in my attic.
This is the updraft of words
heard before birth in the palm
of a broad hand,
where I sat
listening to my life.
This is
the place in-between,
aerie beneath the ether,
where I can almost reach
the apple
at the topmost limb
before it slips—
First appeared in Pebble Lake Review 2004; Some Other Eden chapbook (Finishing Line Press) 2005
Riding Pipeline Trail We Taste
the Scent of Bear on the Wind
it’s the kind of trail that asks
to be followed neither of us ready
to turn back stable-wise
the grasses high enough sun
not yet spent and when you spy
dark on the hillside
the humped shape see it shift
in the heat-haze we part
our lips the gamey taste
of fear on our tongues we wheel
our horses raise the blessed
dust down trail not daring
a look back returning morning
reins in hand we find
the black truck tire nosing earth
spine flexed
we swear we can feel
the horses tensing
between our thighs the world
around us inhaling exhaling
Bio
Ronda Broatch is the author of Shedding Our Skins, (Finishing Line Press, 2008), and Some Other Eden, (2005). Her manuscript, A Rib of New Fruit, was a finalist for the May Swenson Poetry Book Award in 2009 and 2010. Nominated several times for the Pushcart, Ronda is the recipient of an Artist Trust GAP Grant, and is currently poetry editor for Crab Creek Review. In her spare time, she photographs the secret lives of flowers.