PoetryEtc Featured Poet: Mark Weiss   

1
I was riding that day. Nut-trees, roses,
pink, white, and the reddening globes of pomegranates, clouds,
and moving water. An old man
held the reins of my horse. I dismounted, and he rode her
into the mountain.

2
Fig
fur
flower
gemstone. The grass
undulant with snakes.

I hold you in hand. Breast,
testicle, uterus, purple
of garnet.
I was a girl then, in a tree,
with a man beneath me. Apples and figs. Afterwards
sleeping at streamside beneath the branches.

3
It was the trout
that told me to leave. The fig
like an ornament, the moon in the clouds.
Red berries
floated past us. "This place
you may not be." And across the stream
a girl said, "this is your father."

4
For seven years there was no sunlight.
I had lost my way.
They dressed me and groomed me
and made me wear garlands.