The small bedroom in my parents ‘apartment,
my mother, by the window, watering the plants.
Her back cracks like an old chest as she stretches
to prune the ficus. A green god structure bending
under her apt fingertips. Behind the curtains,
a tissue of cloud. Light, a spill of uncut diamonds.
You don’t know yet. This is going to be the best day
in a long row of choked up blues, tinking
and frogging until there is nothing left to mend.
Before you pack a small suitcase filled with
bruises and go down into the moist November,
you’ll suddenly recall the ficus needs watering.
Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, HeadStuff, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her collection The Flavor of The Other is scheduled for publication in 2020 with Dos Madres Press. She is the current Poetry Editor of The Blue Nib.
