almond blossoms
After the cold's unblunted knife,
a tenuous gracility
resembling a linen coif
is tangled on the almond tree.
Help me to stand as nude of line
where the sky nailed my summering,
as starkly witnessed as this sign
the year hammered on nothing --
as mute a token as this maimed,
unapprehending winter tree.
A dark menorah, till enflamed
with white-intense fragility.
Isabel Chenot has loved and practiced poetry for as long as she can remember. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various places — most lately Ekstasis, Shotglass Journal, Vita Poetica. She writes regularly for Story Warren. Some of her poems are collected in The Joseph Tree, available from Wiseblood books.
Amethyst Review 