BEGONIA: ECSTASY
and I begin again: I am many persons.
and I multiply each crown by the strength of my patience.
and I will one day kiss every cluster that rings the house, mark me
and I will speak no words, but there will nevertheless be my body, a wax mould
as it always was. I am supine at the edge of a window. I am spreading
a palm upwind. All inert, ignorant to the inlay under my feet: tender
as skin, as I begin again. tender as I came again to the house I rang
a bell and was beckoned in. I ask you: would you have returned the same, having
apprehended such a face? would you have breathed, ate, walked to and
from, a little disc of gold
under your tongue? Am I fool for
refusing to speak of it? An invitation: please come.
Denise Jarrott grew up in Iowa. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bat City Review, CutBank, The Volta, Burnside Review, LVNG, Poor Claudia and elsewhere. She lives in Colorado.