SUDDEN SPRING
all overdone rhododendron poised and petaled all pluming
some toothsome jam jars cracked open and seeded all pushing
and thumping and thawing galoshes all humming and honeyed
fingers all deciduous narcissus and vernal color all
teeming and molten underpinnings dripping all hungry
for licking all tonguing and sapping and ebbing and bedding
all frothing trumpeting release and consuming all
iris and rushing and coming rhododendron all
morphing and skirted azalea all laughter deciduous all clustered
and soured and stinging all sticky and rooted all falling
and sudden preening all swelling and seeding all culminating
budding and ebullition all bedecked openings trilling all
freckled and fertile dewing all hyacinth humming all hungry
and waiting and wanting and coming and falling and coming
all passing unshod and fleeting all molten and stinging
all frothing and coming and falling and wanting and wanting
Trying to bake a cake from sand
All daughters see history differently than their makers
so inevitably she will say it didn’t go that way that
I’m trying to bake a cake from sand trying
to paint her evil yet these details real
as expired yogurt though the reckoning
may be extra-frilled blue mold ringing the corners
of the can ister, sinister retelling of a silver spoon
life metal against metal always made me plug my ears
couldn’t put the clean forks into the drawer ever you’ll notice
my father isn’t here what’s left out says as much
as what’s written mother this is me saying don’t listen to Freud
or me I love Donna Reed on the screen yes and her tight
clasp
of a home but I’d never trade you in for pearls
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Jessica Lee is the poetry editor of Sweet Tree Review and holds a BA in Creative Writing from Western Washington University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Literary Review, BOAAT, cream city review, DIAGRAM, and Fugue, among others.
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