Stems
Lately I catch myself
less interested
in flowers
than what precedes them:
those leggy necks
ribbed and weaving
wandering skyward
hilariously furred
or thorny or sinewed or silken
metaphorical as serpents
durable as doves
monastic
capacious
muscular and umbilical
as drinking straws
as question marks
submerged in molten earth
delivering answers
that look for all the world
like cornflowers.
CATHERINE ABBEY HODGES is the author of three poetry collections, most recently In a Rind of Light (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2020). Read more.
“Stems” first appeared in Instead of Sadness, Gunpowder Press (2015).