October - Poem 26

Super Natural Sestina ​/ Anna Ojascastro Guzon

Super Natural Sestina
Herbivorous animals avoid the plant
due to its bitter taste. The Missouri Ironweed
is named after its tough stem and rusty blooms
the color of oxidized iron. But it was once
a vibrant hue, a purple magenta to be exact.
As summer ends, petals turn, pollinators cease to visit.

The thorny part of the diminished visits
is the need to be more than a plant.
More than a source of seeds to be exact.
On the fringe of the forest stands the Self-heals 
available for consumption from what was once
used for the restorative benefits of its blooms.

Steeped in a cup of steaming water, the blooms
release compounds that ward off a doctor’s visit.
Its usefulness is no longer measured once
it proves it is a hardworking plant.
Hardly ornamental, the potent Foxglove
was destined to save lives, hearts to be exact.

The best preparation wasn’t exact
when Native Americans made use of blooms
as in measuring the ounces of Echinacea
leaves one should brew when visited 
with a sore throat. Or the amount of plants
to smoke in order to cure a headache once

one sets in. People used trial and error once
in a while, since stories aren’t exact
instructions or microchips to plant
in a cranium in expectation of a bloom
of knowledge that perennially visits
like the almost indestructible day lily.

Like the contrarian Mary of rhymes, the carrion flower 
deters offenders but not with cockle shells. Once 
the living organism begins to resemble a visit
from the walking dead, its odor exactly 
mimics that of a decaying corpse. The morbid bloom
could be contrasted with the resurrection plant. 

To bloom where one is planted, is an exacting mandate for anyone. Visiting flowers in a garden just once is enough to prove their almost supernatural powers.

Greyhound / Kathryn Johnson

The Germans have a word for it. 

Schadenfruede: shameful joy 
Einstellung: obstacle for experts
Torschlusspanik: gate-shut panic 
Zettelkasten: note box 
Welttschmerz: world pain.

Once, in Germany, 
I took a walk with 
the dog my not-quite boyfriend 
was dog-sitting for his friends, when 
a small, perfectly German man, 
dressed in tweed and displaying 
little mustaches, stopped me to ask
Vos isch ze verd ver hund?

I gaped and asked, in my turn:
Dog?

Is there a word, in German or 
some other tongue, 
for this exchange?

What is the word for,
I flew to the other side of the world, 
far across the ocean and full 
of naïve hope, expecting 
to find a husband, a mate, 
only to return home, still alone?

Do the Germans have a word for it? 
I’ve looked. And 
I’m happy to report that 
no one does. Because 

I have found better words, 
better flights, better loves. 

On Morels / Kimberly McElhatten

The first morel of spring pops up
amid a mix of moss and locust—
its cap a map of inky cones and ridges.

A camouflaged topography
so hard to see in dawn’s slim light
among the brown and steely leaves,
an eye can barely find it twice.

Of all the mushrooms in the year,
it is surely most capricious
in where and when it unveils itself
to earnest foragers of May,
who oft set out at morning light
to find the first morel of spring. 

IT’S ONLY NATURAL  / H.T. Reynolds

after Disjointed Fidelity by Lilly Frank

 What’s so unnatural about a dead body
the inevitability after birth—
the result of accumulated stories

Despite the mode of departure,
we all leave for an unknown destination
clutching our ticket in the dark
unsure when to pack
where to stand
our last last goodbye

 when the train whistle bellows
and the clock strikes right,

 when we hold our eyes
and breath together

 lean into the withdrawing

 lean into her fingers beneath
our stone-cold chins chiseled human

 lean into how the air stings
as it passes through the throat

 finally understanding the sum of 21—
identical souls—perfectly seamless
holding one another down—
from drifting skyward—
into an unanswered question…

 the inevitability of death
no matter how unnatural
it may be