Flowers for the Body
1 Bronze Chrysanthemum
In October,
I garnish pumpkin stew with your sunburnt petals.
In November,
I intinct bygones in your radiance sipping a glass of Viognier.
What turns gold,
I overwinter like cabbages.
2 Daylily
Daubing my palette with invisible color,
your buds in butter sate my tongue.
Blind taste, you brighten the blanks
of my unfinished self—
a canvas taken by surprise.
3 Indian Cucumber
Turkey-foot stigmata,
tepals curved like moons—
your flowers can’t compare
to your souterrain salad—
a flourish of roots.
4 Hibiscus
My pom-pom filaments tipped with five rubies could be
the crown of an underworld goddess rising in benediction.
Or a maiko, beads in hair, brewing petals for ceremonial tea,
even a caterpillar’s ghost before the Monarch change,
its last hope dangling by a thread.
5 Nicotiana
I go up in smoke—
leave behind ash on a face
without lips, nose or eyes.
After fresh leaves are applied as a poultice,
I burst into a shooting star.
6 Indian Pipes
Shamans of the wood, we make groundwater broth
of mushrooms and roots shared with healers.
June rain is our summons, spirit our garment.
Staining the hands purple,
we awaken what stands between
what’s not and is.
Anna Evas: Published internationally in literary journals such as Irises (The University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize), Michigan Quarterly Review and, soon, Long Poem Magazine (England), Anna Evas works as a lyricist, recording artist and composer.
