Woman
Janine Canan
In the bright light
at the typewriter
I try to tell you
how I remember you.
Sudden lightning
strikes me and my mind
pours down rain.
Wet cars stream
down Grove Street
allowing occasional
silence to think.
In the city your face
is a dream--of dahlias,
fuchsias and dense
summer begonias, I wrote
years ago, my feelings
a jungle of desires.
Delicate plum blossoms,
golden doronicums,
starry flowers of the dogwood,
swollen eager buds of the lilac and
mountain ash, you answered me,
your young face aged and thinner,
your body of children
bent in dream, oh
your perfect petal skin
radiant as the sun
when you laughed back heartily
as an ocean wave. I remember
you saying, I like to be
at the very edge, drawn up
defiant like a child
waiting for the waves to crash.
You wanted to be drowned and
remain safe--now survival thorns
surround your soft yellow petals
as they slowly open their
fragile secrets of the moon.
Night-blooming cactus,
store of sun and rain,
frail easy flower, so lavishly
opening, practical plant,
so concisely closed--how can I
tell you what you seem.
The night is wet
and the images blur
and glow in my mind
aflame.
