Page 14 - WTP Vol. IX #9

7
Tender
How long the days, or short they grow, and recent small contests in the dawning and the set
of minor agony: shoulder, lumbar, inner
thigh that had writhed giving me birth. Unmentioned, the plan I had to care for her patiently and hear again heaps of family history.
“Hands-on is better than the sports machines”
she sighed, grateful to the new physio.
The man was heartstruck, among those I had to call.
There’s a mess of things about
the house to integrate, no one on the line to measure or to praise the ease of it.
Hers the loose change, hat pins, photos.
Mine the stumbles that could happen to anyone.
The Wild Celery
Now you fear joy—as though a flattened hybrid could sate appetite, green that was its origin bleached nearly white.
Hot-housed, plastic-bagged—will that be the meal? or what grows in the marsh, its mud-flanged heart.
Eat your peck of dirt your mother heard her mother say, the soup free of purity’s temporary money.
You’ve trimmed house, pruned career, composted old griefs. One of the first seasonings recorded was celery’s bitter leaf.
Your hands will lever from a final bed, elbows angle like a flail. Where tight ribs meet on a tough stalk your finger traces insect trails to the crease.
Mary GiLLiLand