Trumpet Vine Love Song
by Francesca Forrest
Here on the floor, on a square of light, lay yourself down beside me beneath a gauze of dust and sunshine downward inclining from a broken window that the trumpet vine overtangles red-lipped flowers, and the sound of bees bees at your lips and mine a buzzing at your lips and mine a stinging as we kiss bees in our blood is it honey, when we cleave? Sweet flesh, a scent of melons they split in the heat the bees hover round and the air shimmers with cicada sheen a keening of husks but the corn still grows taller and the trumpet vine still parts its lips and I mine, and you yours sunshine to sunshine dust to dust
Francesca Forrest finds that living by a swamp has made her appreciate water and wetness more and more. She plans on cajoling the frogs to teach her how to breathe through her skin. She has always loved black raspberries because you can find them in the first weeks of July, growing wild by the train tracks. When asked of what poem the word "cherry" immediately makes her think, she replied as follows: "it immediately makes me think of a song, not a poem: the song "Witches Hat," by the Incredible String Band, and this lyric:
stepping like a tightrope walker
putting one foot in front of the other
wearing black cherries for rings
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