used to like moss and kept all her letters
by Carol Ciavonne
used to like moss
the color of antiquity
here it signifies eating away what is
the obsession of home:
the bees have been on the cherries
now the petals fall, leaving dried stamens
that muddy the white.
In a dark wood the mockingbird sings, thinking
it is night, like babies crying from another room
when the first room is stuffed with mothers.
kept all her letters before she disappeared
a portrait softly altered under the spotlight
and the bow still vibrating
hard to describe
the way the cherry trees move in and out
of the picture, float to the foreground
recede in the next frame. No longer seeable
without blossoms, before fruit.
Symbols unreadable, glass flowers,
the little ice cold hand at the heading of the chapter.
But I reveal my unconscious.
See this picture where they all wear beaks,
clearly delighted.
Carol Ciavonne lives in Santa Rosa, California where she teaches at the junior college. She has a B.A. in Art, and an M.A. in Poetics from New College of California. She was the recipient of the PSA Lyric Poetry Prize in 2004. Recent work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, The Boston Review and Colorado Review.