2 poems
Visiting the Ware Collection of Glass Flowers,
Harvard Museum of Natural History
In a room without windows we count pistils.
It’s the summer she lives in Jamaica Plain. Pavement,
pavement and cars. We cross and cross and cross
to see the flawless doppelgangers. Hand made.
Man made. By father and son—Leopold and Rudolf.
They warmed the glass, with a needle drew each ridge
and line. Look, at this blue lupine formed with forceps
and tweezers from molten shards. Petals, sepal, ovules.
Crossing, I shoulder the cars. She is still my child, my girl.
Look, how she steps up onto each curb in her godless finery.
Daylily Soliloquy
She was single, an only.
And I was feeling
lonely.
Her blonde throat
her tawny bell
impossible
to pass up
amid the mess
of witch grass.
If I had known
she only had
yesterday, yesterday
would I still
have picked her
brought her home?
She’s laid out now
on the compost pile.
The ants love her
keep coming by
to wallow in her
wilt.
She was all alone.
I could not help
myself.
Cindy Veach is the author of Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press), named a finalist for the 2018 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Journal, North American Review, Salamander and elsewhere. She lives in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts.