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NEW - poetry tREnD - German translation project
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featured poet - Katherine Gallagher |
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Collection Tigers on the Silk Road, 2000 Arc Publications, ISBN 1 900072 47 5
Poinsettias Daily she chides her mirror:
who is this woman staring back
turning the glass around, twisting its magnifier
seeing a lifetime's portraits paraded like miniatures -
herself at fifteen in the school- concert, on her wedding-day,
in the Alexandra Chorus, at her son's graduation?
She gathers in her few strands under the blonde-curled wig
studies her pinched skin, wanting a sign,
a rouge in her cheeks
an opposite of surrender. The love of red will save her.
*****
Solo lamps articulate each starred bush. Leaves become flowers, flowers become leaves, fine red stems shedding fire, sunrise-bright. She sees herself walking through their thick wall, a cascade of scarlet at the hospital entrance.
Daily the tread through white-lined leaves, the bloodless veined maps, red-topped - their blazes reminders.
When she grows tired, it is right to look away, forget the furrowed richness.
Three months have scarred me. . . She studies photographs from last Christmas:
she and her sons among the prized dye-bright coal-flowers
that will not be extinguished, will fall off the stem and fold in at their own pace.
(Excerpt from Poinsettias )
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