Poetic Interlude No. 1 / 2013

 Extreme Wisteria

By Lucie Brock-Broido

On abandon, uncalled for but called forth.

                                                                              The hydrangea

Of   her crushed each year a little more into the attar of   herself.

Pallid. Injured, wildly capable.

A throat to come home to, tupelo.

                                                Lemurs in parlors, inconsolable.

Parlors of burgundy and sleigh. Unseverable fear.

Wistful, woke most every afternoon

                                In the green rooms of the Abandonarium.

                                                Beautiful cage, asylum in.

Reckless urges to climb celestial trellises that may or may not

                                 Have been there.

So few wild raspberries, they were countable,

                                 Triaged out by hand.

Ten-thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Intimacy with others,

                                 Sateen. Extreme hyacinth as evidence.

Her single subject the idea that every single thing she loves

                                 Will (perhaps tomorrow) die.

High editorial illusion of   “Control.” Early childhood: measles,

                                                                              Scarlet fevers;

Cleopatra for most masquerades, gold sandals, broken home.

Convinced Gould’s late last recording of the Goldberg Variations

Was put down just for her. Unusual coalition of early deaths.

Early middle deaths as well. Believed, despite all evidence,

In afterlife, looked hopelessly for corroborating evidence of   such.

                                                                                          Wisteria, extreme.

There was always the murmur, you remember, about going home.