A DEPTH OF PINK

Edith rose from the Bible page
awaiting this first great grandchild's birth
rose past Wayne
anod in the light shaft
•
moment in the river with Wayne
old sepia tone that summer. . . Hush!
he shall and life washed
•
HOUSE GLOW, Hush!
close the green screen door so not wake the baby.
Move past
the violent fragrant grasseslate
summer in the warm dark.
She has gone out she thinks
"Just pick all the figs and be done with it, why not.
Wayne's already asleep. I'll carry out the old lug box.
There's plenty of moonlight."
•
having watered this tree myself all these years
•
Fig, they call you. Life brushes. My thoughts branch
•
shame shame
unto the tree I came
fame fame
let the tree rename
me
•
I see her in the telephone. Wooly white haired moon there
in the dusty canopy of itchy velvet.
Begin the Greatgrandmother's
secret feast
on figs, on words. Nursed at the great final silence
•
that seed become soul did lush mouth eat and eat
the depths of pink
•
consider the edible fig. FICUS CARlCA. Owes its life to the
inedible fig and the female wasp. The female wasp emerges from
the inedible fig where she was born, passes the male staminate
flowers within the inedible fig and carries pollen to the edible
fig composed only of female flowers.
Multiple fruits consist of
the enlarged ovaries of several flowers, more or less grown
together into one mass. In the fig the fleshy receptacle enlarges
to become the sweet edible portion.
Turned inside out the fleshy
receptacle shows small pistillate flowers.
•
"The child's small wonderful hands on my face."
•
each fig a person, a stop
•
smell of baby skin fragrant only to the very animal
•
Edith's private meal shall heal, she smiled
hand names not breast apart from me
•
while she ate and let the stars hint
through the tree
•
Hush! She is eating!
•
each fig, each person, each time
•
exotic smirk of pink, that to eat them
in dark
close quiet the eyes
mumble a spirit before the Lord/Aged goddess weaving herself
into Israel's tapestry/
•
the child is coming/And she extended herself/
•
she ate of the affirmation of her
animal self in the tree/And her hind legs shook/
•
shall be in no one's jam jars this year
•
and place knowing like a frame of old wood
around the apparition of Edith eating and
as she eats being this knowing
•
foliate book, tree, gallows, mast, lintel and post.
I see her in the telephone!
I see her revive, reform
•
as maidens dance in a garden
cups uplifted
•
And you will laugh. After eating every fig on the tree that
night, and brought the empty lug box back to the porch, waked
Wayne just enough to roll him to his bed. Then slept herself.
•
"It was just like labor pains all night,
I told Wayne in the morning."
•
Edith was stopped. Went to hospital. Diverticulitis.
An inflammation within.
"Never eat figs again! or strawberries
or anything with tiny seeds," said Doctor.
•
Hush!She has lived. She lives.
•
She waits for our child.
•
I SEE HER in the telephone
surround me
with ritual
strength.
•
two women
pink
light all about
us