SPARK

Cheryl Lavoie
Inspiration piece

Apache Plums
By Anne Nowselski
Response

That’s not their name, of course.
Plumes, is the word.
Fallugia paradoxa, if you want.
They don’t grow here,
not in the shade of norways
or the drenching rains
that make the earth rich and dark.

Maybe you could get one.
From a nursery or through the mail.
A fuzzy plant to sit in a teacup of sand.
When winter blankets the grass,
it could watch evergreens whipping
and icicles clinking in the wind.

The silky pink plumes would shudder
with laughter, as it sipped slowly.
It will imagine places far away.
The heat burning skins and petals.
The cold nights of endless stars.
The brush of baby quails underneath.
Holding the dry white earth together.

It will miss the arid sky.
It will want to go back.
And when you open the window
for the last fresh breeze of summer
the feather pink clusters will fade
to white and then shake themselves
loose into the wind.

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