Wanting Grapefruit in September
Forbidden fruit,
your blonde soul
the accident of Barbados
farmers who played
with pomelos and oranges,
crowding the branch with
grapey clusters, shining globes
all reckless with beauty and
dressed in glossy green.
Soon enough
there will be time
to section and share
the sour infinity
of your ruby core, for pulpy
slurps of sticky pleasure
on frosted mornings — sweet
winter, please come!
I search the aisles
at the Star, choose
lemons from Spain,
tomatoes and squash
to cook and freeze,
a seasonal harvest
of vegetable death.
I hunger, and watch
desire grow for what
I will not find today.
The Only Constant
……………for my daughter
Your bicycle flies over the earth,
embroidering stars on the velvet sky
of sleepless March, landmarks
of childhood glowing below—
forests of grass full of giant ants,
ice-cream trucks, TinyTown,
the chair where you nursed.
We know that in time
rivers turn rocks into sand,
that seeds become trees, who may
even grieve. But how to explain
the small hand seeking yours?
Your baby grows dimples
overnight, fills and empties
her belly made for milk,
change a daily miracle
that leaves you to steal
what you can—soup, sleep!—
pleasures now scarcer than love
in the altered country of the heart.
We move ourselves from here
to there—still, maple leaves
open between snow and solstice,
a show of magic every spring.
© S. B. Merrow
S. B. Merrow lives in Baltimore, where she writes poems and works on the fine flutes of professional musicians. Recently, her work has been accepted by Salamander, Nimrod International Journal, The Tishman Review, Panoply, Gyroscope Review, and other journals. Two poems were selected by the Naugatuck River Review in their 2018 contest. Her chapbook, “Unpacking the China,” was the winner of QuillsEdge Press’ 2016 chapbook competition.
The Loch Raven Review 