Jessica furtado
the lions of anticipation
The forsythia feels no remorse
for fingering the skirt
of long-dormant roses,
its golden thirst always
gulping up sun, body shedding
pollen like it’s got nothing
to lose. The shrub’s reach
loose like a ballerina’s warm limbs,
branches swanning on wind
to their own fictive rhythm.
On the week of its first bloom,
the forsythia roars a riot of lemon
faces, thousands of miniature lions
shaking out petaled manes.
In the question of consent,
it must be known
that if the roses had their say,
they would bend to tiny lion jaws
and beg to be touched repeatedly,
then devoured like secret cake
under the velvet gaze of spring rain.
for fingering the skirt
of long-dormant roses,
its golden thirst always
gulping up sun, body shedding
pollen like it’s got nothing
to lose. The shrub’s reach
loose like a ballerina’s warm limbs,
branches swanning on wind
to their own fictive rhythm.
On the week of its first bloom,
the forsythia roars a riot of lemon
faces, thousands of miniature lions
shaking out petaled manes.
In the question of consent,
it must be known
that if the roses had their say,
they would bend to tiny lion jaws
and beg to be touched repeatedly,
then devoured like secret cake
under the velvet gaze of spring rain.
Cherry Blossoms: A Craving
All those pink mouths
against the cloudless sky
like stickers pressed to the spine
of a well-loved book, its pages.
The thing about an unfed appetite
is that the hungering multiplies,
the petaled lips agape and tonguing
at open space – an expanse
blue as your loneliness, a man’s
pale-lashed eye. Don’t you want
to sip in air like it could fill you;
pant like a lapdog when the sun
grows hot on blossom-blushed skin?
The best sins are heady and tangle-
limbed, their blood-rushed kisses
on a horizon staged for setting.
against the cloudless sky
like stickers pressed to the spine
of a well-loved book, its pages.
The thing about an unfed appetite
is that the hungering multiplies,
the petaled lips agape and tonguing
at open space – an expanse
blue as your loneliness, a man’s
pale-lashed eye. Don’t you want
to sip in air like it could fill you;
pant like a lapdog when the sun
grows hot on blossom-blushed skin?
The best sins are heady and tangle-
limbed, their blood-rushed kisses
on a horizon staged for setting.
