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Janet Lynn Davis
a wasp
inhabits the feeder
I start to refill—
my days, so full
with plans I must change
tomorrow
tomorrow, always
tomorrow. . .
these mountains of clutter
have begun giving birth
a pallid
middle-aged woman
finds herself
experimenting
with tanka
like the night-blooming
cereus
in desert darkness
for one moment
will I have my day?
I think of buying
a lily
this week,
my deluded body
clinging to spring
impulsively
I lop the old hibiscus
down to its base;
what need I must have
to challenge my faith
I avert my eyes
in the clinic corridor—
there, the same doctor
who years earlier
misdiagnosed me, twice
trodden blossom
reawakened through illness—
determined
to make up for the time
she lost while well
the thick froth
of buttercups
just beyond
the emptiness
of a retention pond
before I rise
a slow rain on the patio. . .
I linger
longer than usual
in the warm shower
in love
over vegetable curry
I can’t stop staring. . .
this brown rice
isn’t one bit mushy
she collects
rocks, shells, quarters, pennies
. . . also seeds
for her small brother,
to teach him about life
her newborn face
smaller than your open hand;
this daughter
has no idea yet
how safe she is
I rarely gaze
at the moon,
one thing in my life
I know
will never change
monarch
how I’d love to write
about you
but that would be so trite
so, go, fly away
Janet Lynn Davis's passion for the written word emerged during her childhood and later worked its way into her college studies and career. She has focused on poetry only in recent years, however, and "met" tanka in summer 2005. Her free verse and tanka can be found here and there on the Internet and in print.
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