A Life of Fruit and Flowers by Carol Barrett
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| Image | Magda Ehlers |
A Life of Fruit and Flowers
My sister’s life could topple like a ladder
in the orchard my father planted, a few late
apples hiding in tall grass. Rains will turn
their sweet pulp to burnt amber, bees
will converse about their fragrant finds.
She is wedded to antiques, dolls of sackcloth
and sawdust, cornhusk dolls, china dolls
in layered pinafores and laced bonnets,
copper kettles, christening outfits, carved thimbles.
Her flowery porcelain basins with pitchers to match
symbolize all that is clean, hands of the ancestors
forever awash in memory, rings sparkling
as embroidered tea towels pat them dry.
Her walls are pinned with hand-painted plates –
peaches and pears gleaming, fistfuls of grapes.
And roses – myriad shades of pink brighten
her halls, hanging above each doorway, inviting
entrance to the task within, gold rims glistening.
My sister says she is tired now, needing her
daughter-in-law’s assistance, shopping for winter
scarves, rosy silken swirls lifting her face
to the mirror. She had to be helped to the car,
laid down in the back seat until the voyage
over sloppy streets sloshed her home
to a cushion of clean sheets, pert daisies blooming.
My sister’s heart has run an elegant race, always
agitating to fill the hours, never shorting the day’s
cup. She would extend each tablespoon of light
at dusk while working the rototiller, flashlight
in her mouth, hands gripping the handles,
tenacious, insisting on what could yet be
prepared for planting. Each moment the seed
was bedded, mattered. Each dormant leaf, grateful.
The doctors have tried to strengthen my sister’s
heart with medicine to thread more red cells
through her vessels, feed her worried mind,
her cold feet. But alas to little avail. Next
they will run a tiny lens through her veins
to take pictures of her heart, each reluctant
chamber, each padding valve. They thump
softly now, as if wearing slippers through
her pristine house, entering each doorway
with flowers, petals still clinging to the stem.
© Carol Barrett
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| Carol Barrett |
| Carol Barrett has published three volumes of poetry, most recently READING WIND, and one of creative nonfiction, PANSIES. An NEA Fellow in Poetry, Carol supervises creative dissertations for both Antioch and Saybrook Universities. |
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