Carol Peters

[from Muddy Prints, Water Shine]

Philomel

Before she learns mourning
a girl discovers black horses,

black bees, a blossom’s groin,
grackles and sunflower seeds.

A swollen moon, wafer-thin,
rises in a milk-blue sky.

The nature of water is to run.
Grass roots in mud.

The wafer forced between her lips
clings to the roof of her mouth

where she can’t taste
or say, at first, what happened.

Collared doves settle and gasp
while a nightingale learns singing.

[broadcast on The Countdown, miPOradio, February 2007]

         -> next