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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4261 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Forgotten Flowers Lauriette (Laurie Byro) 1 Climbing the ladder into the swirling dust of Bandelier she lifts her skirts, relaxes to strains of coppery petals— (images flattened on the wall Indians had sworn were not dried blood) Berries crushed through white rags. Women rouged and wrung out into rusty, watery buckets. Artisans purging clots between their legs. Women know the truth about art. 2 Because his mother named him Romeo, he joins a gang, carves a rose into his forearm. When he passes the same sick woman three days in a row, he bundles her up like the Christ child, gathers her into swaddling clothes, deposits her at the stone steps of St. Paul’s, sprinkles her head with holy water. He finds a pew to kneel in, thinks about wading into summer grass, laundry his mama hung high, the smell of sun, the green snakes that never scared him, their narrow eyes, the yellow flowers, the forgotten names of flowers. 3 The Russian girl didn’t mind her abduction into freedom or the men who paid regularly for the pleasure of her company. When they danced, she’d hold a length of ribbon over their heads. Its iridescence matched their mornings, with no obligations. When he brought her ballet slippers and a dozen sunflowers, still oozing black dirt from the fields, she tore the petals, one by one and scattered them on the wooden floor. They danced among gold coins, didn’t notice when they missed a step. |
