Surrender                                                                                                           —Geraldine Connolly


Rogue seedlings flank
the front bank.

Aspen roots lift
asphalt
from the driveway's face.

I can hear
growth

like a crackle
of flames.
I watch a frantic

squirrel hoard
pinecones,
strip them clean.

Weeds choke the garden,
thorns and buffelgrass.
Wild blackberries seethe.

I scrub green moss.
Still it spreads its stain

across the deck, and
falls into cracks where
green sprouts flare up.

I fight against surrender but
the trees call to me
as they creep forward.
The forest wants to take us back.
 


Out of Balance


The scales of Libra can veer
sometimes laden, sometimes filled with air.
My days swing in circles,
from giddiness to despair.

I flutter. I vow. I bend softly
then burst with prickles. As soon
as dread has gone, I’m all ecstasy.
What I can count on is vacillation.

I tilt and swerve, I fly towards
a sky that spins and tumbles.
I hop across stepping stones
moving on a lava flow. I fumble.

My crib was lined with slippery sheets.
Even my death bed will shake with indecision,
my body wanting to slide into its soft nest
yet leap out, ride the animal to the finish.
 

Geraldine Connolly

Geraldine Connolly is the author of three poetry collections: Food for the Winter (Purdue University Press), Province of Fire (Iris Press) and Hand of the Wind (Iris Press) as well as a chapbook, The Red Room. Her new book, Aileron, is forthcoming from Terrapin Books in 2018. She is the recipient of two NEA creative writing fellowships in poetry, a Maryland Arts Council fellowship, and the W.B. Yeats Society of New York Poetry Prize.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2017