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dancing girl press, 2014
$7.00 |
Linda Ferguson is award-winning poet, fiction writer and essayist whose work has appeared in many journals, such as The Milo Review, VoiceCatcher, The Saranac Review, Square Lake, The Santa Fe Literary Review, Fiction at Work and Cloudbank.
Bearing Fruit
See Meredith with the long brown hair
and the seeds between her teeth;
Meredith of the ski jacket and spiked sandals,
she stirs sand in a hole with a pointed stick
then plants a peach tree;
Meredith with the curving spine
and perfumed armpits,
snapping off pink plum blossoms
and hiding them in her sheets;
oh, see Meredith of the burgundy chair
and the fringed satin skirt,
so cool and smooth;
and Meredith of the hard-apple pie
and sour lime skins,
serving raw pastries from a silver tray;
see Meredith of the night
adding a tier to another white cake
and Meredith of the day sleeping in the
shade of a pine tree—
hot afternoon, see Meredith of the
blackberries reaching deep
into cushions and barbs,
she opens her mouth wide and eats;
see Meredith of the long white arms
and the soft inner wrists
laced with trickling red ribbons that sting;
see Meredith of the sun-warmed lips
ripening into a smile, now that the brambles
have drawn blood and a dark, sweet juice.