The wolfbane's blue in the last of the light
wet with head low over red-singed sedum.
Licorice's silver, filling in for the weak-willed,
reaching and shining in places forgotten since May.
Heliotrope resurrected and crazy with fullness --
the scent of old ladies at prayer. Cathedral bells, too,
finally just going for it, like the innocent bomber
on his way to forty virgins and everlasting life.

Rough Forms

In the midlight of mourning my grasp
(after you) feels long gone. Still,
there is wanting. Much cannot be held or
celebrated on your ground. I want simple
horses made plain with early signs of love.
From ancient mounds the first recognizable
sorrows might rouse me, in crescents
of bison horn, or snake, their consorts
of the hunt still lost, with springtime.
In perfect chambers a carefully buried gazelle
shields a signal towards praise--you here,
or not. I can beseech myself. My heart
has already been weighed. In Egypt I remember
the sky, it is supported by posts or held up
by a god or it rests on walls or it is a cow 
or it is a half-man whose arms and feet
touch the earth. And I will remember
to be satisfied.

Scission

Treasures of mountain cherry
Japanese joinery and dulled bronze
hinges hold. What licensed collectors
once peeled. Bark prized and spared
an untrained mutilation. Mottles
of gold grow back for more.

Wrong strippings happen so early.
Look around. Some hope to cut you
carefully. Others wind up John Wayne
Gacy. Or Virginia Woolf who sent out
sideshoots, then gashed what remained
of her own thin covering.

Z (Susan Zielinski) started reading and writing poems four years ago and lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

 Z