Lemon Verbena
I’ve come for guidance,
sit near, pick off an aphid,
listen, as I’ve been told
to do by those who believe
plants speak.
All season I’ve consumed
your summer sweet.
Flavor or tonic
I don’t know enough to know,
yet I’ve wanted, watered
religiously. Sitting in a sea
of words, I pluck them like
I’ve plucked your leaves for tea,
attending to your slender silence.
You’re always mute, shepherding
a temple’s ghost of green.
This last surge of heat is fierce.
When it lets go, you’ll go,
and I’ll take another loss,
take stock in all I’ve invited in:
your chlorophyll, and nervine
qualities, your commingling
with the sun’s abilities, the oils
for pleasure, strength, your lack
of weariness. I want to call you
sister. Yes, there’s something
young, lemony on my tongue
at last tipped in word, an us
inherited and shared.
Tara Bray is the author of Small Mothers of Fright (LSU Press, 2015) and Mistaken for Song (Persea Books, 2009). Read more.
“Lemon Verbena” has been previously published in the Hampden Sydney Poetry Review.