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Three Poems by A. Rabaduex


after the death of a neighbor kid, I think of Charlotte's Web


in morning sun

a spider meditates

along its lattice


next to my bench

no words

or wisdom threaded


I look again

like a child

at wilted sunflowers


in the garden bed

no such thing as dead – they’re dreaming

of their favorite bees


& the oaks – no dying leaves

they are autumn's brass notes

ringing out in final symphony


but there’s no sign

of what it means to be

without breath


where are the ribbons?

the silky answers shining

light from the corner?


before us

all this

life


all this

letting go

still


we don't know




Before the revolution


There is nothing new except what has been

forgotten. -Marie Antoinette


She wanted to be a flower

farmer that first year kneeling

under the birch trees

on Evergreen Drive.

300 bulbs –

each a dirty prayer

a messy birth, a hope

that beauty can atone

for ripping into earth.

Loud rows, tulips

angry red.

Morning and night

it rained

but it was never enough.

If they are hungry

she thought

let them eat the sun.




The time I ate a flower


I pulled it from a yellow

birthday cake


pansy sugared purple


the way I try to be


it's in the voice

extra honey in

please but


I'd whittle my tongue

before I'd call a stranger sweetie


I can't

grow

sage in the front yard


songbirds keep eating seeds


chickens prefer meat

once the hens picked apart a skink

in front of my son

he was three


a lover of dinosaurs anything green


after

his favorite color was hemoglobin

he wanted horror films

instead of fossils


either way, bones are displayed

seasons change


now he likes blue


now woolly bear caterpillars

rush into trees

cold weather mystics


they claim


winter will be long


the road's their attempt at escape


I veer around them

to spare at least one thing


winter plea-se

don't bite



the flower was tissue

in my teeth

the flavor was the end

of spring




 

A. Rabaduex is a veteran, having translated Russian and worked as a paralegal for the Air Force for 7 (mostly fun) years. She now works as an adjunct professor teaching ethnographic writing and basic writing. Her poems are inspired by pantheism and etymology. Her most recent writing successes include winning contests in Causeway Lit, American Writers Review, and Sand Hills Lit, as well as being nominated for the first time for a Pushcart Prize by Gyroscope Review.

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