Grafted
Annette, this is a weird poem. Let me know if it’s TOO weird or TOO oblique (not enough cards up).
After "Grafted," Christy Grace, acrylic on canvas
Only magnolia's cold-hardy varieties thrive in Zone 5.
The leathery arrangement of yours, mine, and ours.
Saucer magnolias and their cup-shaped blossoms.
His son, my son, our daughter. Clouds in the painting
have the transience of consciousness. Is cold-hardy
the same as divorce-hardy? The flowers won't wait
for leaves. Love was not obvious, obscured as mineral.
The branches reach like my arms at a bad angle.
The curves in the petals repeat in the sky. Pink signals
an absence of pigment. All three children practiced
to be gone. Disembodiment of bad haircuts, sun in their eyes.
The binding was a hue I strived for—foliage green,
vividly bright. I wish I could go back and say all the words.
Half knots of expression, so much loose fabric, hidden splints.
Thorny does as thorny is. The going was multidimensional,
a subjective window this blended family. I let our clasped hands
speak for us. The xylem of goodbye without turning back.
Rooting and longing have the same ancestral history.
