The Dilemma of Miss Ipomoea Alba
Tucked away
in a small forest patch,
rife with English Ivy
and selective eyes
of spattering light,
she presses up against
the taller stalk of her
ripe foster mother,
and shies away unnoticed.
Sometimes I'll find her
leaning up against a sidewall,
closed but puckering,
kissing up to the sky,
a pouting umbrella
turned upside down, waiting
for the sanctuary of shadow.
So she waits
for the moment
that she can open up
like a blank white canvas,
her pale palm flung open
like a starving star
screaming, blind
as the indignant baby bird
that demands to be fed
as if there were
no time of night.
Sometimes I wonder
if she feels like a fist
tied up in a pregnant gut,
pounding away in the dark.
Sometimes I wonder
how far she will push
and burrow her way up
the tall fairy tail
before she's told
that she's gone high enough.
Sometimes I wonder
if she feels her world
closing in on her
like the force of the womb.
And sometimes I wonder
if she'll ever grow up
playing hide-and-seek
by herself in the dark.
Does she know
that she only blooms on command?
I wonder. Because
sometimes I know her,
her Fatherless state,
and wonder if she will remain
inherent
to the slave of His light -
a full blast of cliché.
Copyright1999 Cynthia Glass