Bringing the Moon to Her for a Closer Look

The magnolia and its damn blooming has caused this ache in me.
Suzanne knows how to bicycle down Eagle Road and how to ride back up!

Deer nibble the daylilies-they eat up all the shoots.
After Cricket's death, the horses went wild. Stalls with their bite marks.

With no warning or apparent cause, the window of the van shattered.
Suzanne drives Al's car around the farm. Triumphant smile!

I look into the silly, malevolent face of the poppy.
Phony-looking petals and purplish-black insides should be floating somewhere.

The boats of the dead are floating to Hell.
Andrew thinks of her as a river.

She is one of those leafy trees again.
Our girl beautiful as green metallic bugs, don't you see?

During that time we were all throbbing heart and vulnerable inside-outs.
The magnolia tickles me like a persistent pet.

Big Crow patrols. Cardinal triumphant in the Japanese maple.
The way he kicked down the door and entered our house was a metaphor

for the way he used her. We looked for her in that weird neighborhood.
We rang the doorbells. At every house huge dogs lunged at us.

If only we'd had Brett arrested when he broke into our house.
I don't like men who can make a woman disappear. My mother enjoyed cooking

and babies once, but he devoured her. The shadiness was in him
and came to be in her. He was a steamroller, pressed on her until she was gone.

She taught us to thread a needle, but the needle was too small
for the thread. Every night he pushed into her, but she could not refuse him.

She taught us to make maybaskets and drop them on boys' doorsteps.
She taught us to be maybaskets dropped on boys' doorsteps.

When Roger called, I was afraid. "You'll never get a date that way," she said
Each morning I sit by the magnolia, take on its endurance, its ability

to flower when no one expects it. Black-eyed susans survive drought
and downpour. Today my girl is lighthearted enough to sing.

I wish I could bring the moon to her for a closer look, but my soul is too
shallow to hold all this beauty. Looking for nectar after my night of bad dreams.

Margaret Szumowski

Margaret Szumowski's favorite sin is lust, but drowning the scoundrel is what she craves in this poem.

If you've any comments on this poem, Margaret Szumowski would be pleased to hear from you.