Produced by Dennis Camire

This week’s poem is by Lisa Moore of Harrison, leader of the Mountain Poets Society.

 

Queen Anne in Winter

By Lisa Moore

 

Each flower is a hand’s span

of her whiteness. Wherever

his hand has lain there is

a tiny purple blemish.

 

William Carlos Williams

“Queen-Anne’s Lace”

 

Come October, I watch Queen Anne change face.

 

She hunches, her stalk brittle, her roots dry.

A musty gray tarnishes the lace

That she has been crocheting since July.

 

At night, the harsh winds hush.

Mild breezes stir a memory of whiteness worn

In August’s lush and clover-tangled bed

Where she billowed with desire, blind and wild,

Inebriate of air and full of grace.

 

The blemish fades. She tucks her head.

She closes in as if she holds a child,

For hold she must.

As she waits to die and then to be reborn,

In winter’s mirror, she sees her daughter’s face.

 

Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu

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