It was rows & rows of
red-red knuckles of
skunk cabbage, a goblin finger
poking through God’s eye.
I saw them—mythic umbrellas,
greenest secrets;
a little house for moss
& mice & mayapples
with tiny, hidden apples,
& how it bewilders me
to think how science
has found the fruit
a healer of cancer.
So I’ve spent my whole life
in love
in love with every forest and mourning
doves know me by name;
it helps,
it helps to have my children,
and the music-box winding
of my son’s voice—
my heart unwound,
playing its only tune.
—
Chrissy Stegman is a poet/writer from Baltimore, Maryland. Recent work has appeared in/forthcoming: Rejection Letters, Gone Lawn, Gargoyle Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Stone Circle Review, Fictive Dream, Inkfish, The Voidspace, The Madrigal, 5 Minutes, Libre, and BULL. She is a BOTN and Pushcart Prize nominee.
