If you come soon,
the budded tips of campion
will be split, the deep cerise
of coronaria, such delicate velvet
on the study, silver-green stems,
you cannot help but feel them,
and if it is morning,
the wild carrot rimmed with dew
along its fronded leaves,
its thick, hairy stalks,
I will spill in your palm
the brimming wet petals
of milky froth,
and touch your fingers
to the tight, indigo buttons
of bush pea, and the cupped
yellow silk of sundrops.
When you come,
flanged with light, separation
slipping from us
like sleep, like garments,
I will stand with my hands open,
I will take your hands
and hold them out
to all that is supple,
flowering, and wild.
Radiant Season
DEBORAH POPE has published four collections of poetry, most recently Take Nothing (2020) from the University of Pittsburgh Press, which is also re-issuing her first collection, Fanatic Heart, in their Classic Contemporary Series. Her poems have been in many journals, including Georgia Review, Triquarterly, Southern Review, Poetry, Michigan Quarterly Review, Birmingham Review, and Poetry East. In 2019 she received the Robinson Jeffers Award.
Poem from Mortal World (LSU Press, 1995).