"Path of A Possum" by Gordon Marshall

Illustration by Samantha Scott-Heron



IV

A garden opens up
In the desert,
Roses rife with thorns

Convolvulus, magnolia,
All you can think,
Dream, screaming

Yellow daisies,
Daffodils, Easter lilies,
It’s a flora-fest

A fauna feast, East
Of Eden…Read
My lips, tax

My senses,
This is sensible
And senseless,

The end
And chapter one.
My lips are chapped

From licking
My mouth dry
As ink.

The earth is dark
As coffee
The odor

As keen, collecting the atomized
Nectar of the blossoms
In a vapor free-for-all,

The high notes of the sepals
High as steeples
As roshis high on hashish

Seeking God
In Asia
Free from the wheel of life,

Cross-legged in incensed temples
Copper light coming in
Through the columns…

The conceit bring me too far.
I should be in Texas, the yellow rose
Reigning on its bush

Pushing people to love
Lush, rushing sap
Spending itself in wood.

The yellow rose is a mind
The size of a diamond,
And as hard

Core intense as concentrated coal,
Millennia old.
It could kill a man,

And has, and not for good
Alone, and not for bread
Any more than the thrill

Of red all over wrists
Splashing up the collar
Staining the linen like lipstick.

Respect that mind,
It’s a time bomb
In a tragic time,

Comic color,
The Hartford lawyer would say,
Writing off the damage,

Clean as a canary,
All the same as ashen as a raven
With clipped wing.