Three Poems
Molly Stern
cold drop, frozen drop
establishing the symmetry of solitude
she makes, she gathers, she heaps up
the frozen drops of its miniscule structure
to measure the geometry of the face
frozen bonds clinging in parallel
a routine dip of the palm as it presses closer
along the reflection of crystal capillaries
she plots a graph for isolation
a net of flat minerals, the close-packed edifice of the macro
in which lies wavelengths, the perfect and complete pattern
from the next point to this, the beams converge
shot through, piercing the atoms of the molecule
a coherent, spatial arrangement of one’s aloneness.
cactus
evolved leaves push away
ribs and multipetaled flowers
long dormancy, and then—transpiration at night
the clouds seeding it with their spherical blood.
the globose body is filled with sunken nodes
deep, fertile mounds receiving the tubular ovary
thickened, waiting for it to course up
up columnar branches into the cool dark of evening.
the shadow of spines at sunrise
stilling the air, moisture-packed and pressed close
in the succulent body.
to be nourished within the carpel
to drink the rich liquid at night.
cumulonimbus
affixed at the primordial root:
clouds, cotyledons, milk
all dense with heaps of oxygenated seed-leafs.
the coldest gravity towers overhead
stacking the sky with its cirrus-like head
currents of these, immense, radiate through zonal tides.
absorption begins, faster than the squall
more night-shining than the streaks of atmosphere
clustered deep in the plumules.
seedful gales waver across this chasm of breath
snake down the incus anchored in total stillness
atmospheric clusters building higher
packing the mesosphere with cloud
whorls of blindness punctuating the nub
stems insinuating darkness as marrow thickens
loads the stems full of twilight.
a parting as the cumulonimbus splits
slicing the protective cup fastened to the wavering planet
the bud opening, noctilucent whirls of ink-dark.
Molly Stern lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her poetry has appeared in Witness Magazine, So to Speak and The Mays Anthology.