Doubly-stalked,
a crown of flowers,
pale green at center
ending in creamy
white. Your petals
so delicate,
your veins shimmer
with crystals.
Named for a shepherdess,
you look lamb-soft
and tender-tame.
At the base of your
sunshine-colored
stamen, something liquid
has secreted,
some secret
nectar for a god.
Perhaps you’re
scentless
for safety,
for who knows
what the gods would do
to possess you?
Carol Berg’s poems are forthcoming or in Gyroscope, Crab Creek Review (Poetry Finalist 2017), DMQ Review, Hospital Drive (Contest Runner-Up 2017), Sou’wester, Spillway, Redactions, Radar Poetry, Verse Wisconsin. Her chapbooks, Her Vena Amoris (Red Bird Chapbooks), and “Self-Portraits” in Ides (Silver Birch Press) are available. Her manuscript, An Accidental Species, was a finalist in the Four Way Books Levis Prize in Poetry. She was winner of a scholarship to Poets on the Coast and a recipient of a Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Latest posts by Carol Berg (see all)
- Perimenopausal - 27th February 2023
- Love Poem to an Amaryllis - 2nd December 2022