by Kelly R. Samuels

The sandy clay found there and here is best.
And with what speed, the drop. Not one,
nor the other, but both, just so, just when.
Kismet, she called it, standing in the house
I no longer own. Or fate. Or the ripening
for what beads and bursts and speaks to another sense.
This and this, now.
And how we came here, accidently.
The turn that led to the valley
where the poppies are in bloom, swaying, swaying,
winking with their black eyes.
Or the mold on the plate, in the dish, blossoming.
Or the tree bark and coal tar, not to cure, but to color.
This and this, see.

This effervescence.
This union and scatter.

Kelly R. Samuels lives in the upper Midwest. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net, and has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals including The Carolina Quarterly, Rappahannock Review, Sweet Tree Review, Salt Hill, and RHINO. She has a chapbook forthcoming in January from Unsolicited Press.