Flesh Charm for Waifs and Strays gleditsia triacanthos
Leave a commentSeptember 15, 2015 by The Citron Review
by Laura Madeline Wiseman
Dear thorns in a chain linked yard,
sometimes sweetness fails to fruit.
Dear nearly hairless. Dear curved
and twisted. Why did he despise
her bell-shaped petals on the lawn?
Why did her thornless form lack
a sharpness he coveted? Dear ripe.
Dear sweet pulp. Dear brown seeds.
How quickly he cut her down one morning,
men everywhere with ropes and blades
sawing her black bark, yanking
her fissured limbs to the groundβ
the ground shakes half a block away.
He never asked for kitchen spells, recipes
to open her womb, accept his white seed.
Dear honey. Dear edible bean. Dear shade
over his drive, drink this charm and leave.
Laura Madeline Wiseman is the author of over twenty books and chapbooks and the editor of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press). Her books include Drink (BlazeVOX Books), Wake (Aldrich Press), Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience (Lavender Ink), and the collaborative book The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters (Les Femmes Folles) with artist Lauren Rinaldi. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Margie, Mid-American Review, The Iowa Review, Calyx, Ploughshares, and Feminist Studies. She teaches writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. lauramadelinewiseman.com