Woman Alone

So many seeds I no longer care to nurture.

You
left so evening finds me
gravitating, this time
to a bottle of rosé
selected on the merits
of its label
tossing care, caution, taste
to the gravel path,
so many seeds I no longer care
to nurture.

I slide that bottle beneath last year’s plums
forgotten in the freezer and stand
with the door open, the cold spilling
over my reckless ankles and picture
your knotted brows,
the way they would pinch witnessing.

But your absence frees me
from consideration, so I slip
out to wander through the drifting
pollens until my eyes are red and
weepy, my skin itches
and I could care less if my soul
drips out through the caverns
of my sinuses because this
is the stuff
of life.

I will return in a state
of allergic delirium to eat a melon with a spoon
and my feet
on the table. I will drink my rosé
in a glass that doesn’t have a ‘foot’ and
predictably the wine once frozen will now be
warm and I will swallow it
anyway loving it more
because left on my own I don’t give
a flaming tail how
I’m supposed to like it
(and I can tell
you where to put that
foot.)

Pink and softening in twilight, I will
lay in the dandelions and stroke
the darkening velvet of the sky,
making the half-effort to nestle
in the shuddering bamboo
so the neighbors won’t think
I’m mad
or dead, still
the careful eye will catch
my bare feet protruding from the leaves.

I will melt too much
chocolate, slog it still lumpy over the last berries
from our garden, eating until the stars
wink and no matter
what I hear stirring in the descending
darkness, or how many insects
sip the cocktail of my blood
I will not forget to lie
with the canopy of this night
sky at my fingertips.

© Trisha Traughber 2019 text and images.

Thank you Stephen M. Tomic