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poem



by Anne Marie Fowler



Hibiscus Rising



Propped on the sofa, I reach over and hoist the blinds

spilling the moon all over my hibiscus carpet.


Birds are alight among the petals, and they shift

in and around the anthers with frenzied radiance.


I trust their breast-splitting clattering

and ponder on the open gate beckoning


through the window. There, the mule deer have been,

their tracks undisturbed and cavernous in the rain-soaked


terrain of the back yard. I return to birdsong

among the woolen ply, the sweet tittering rustling


the thatch-grass. There the hibiscus rises, an aria

to the moon, beckoning, always beckoning.


 

Anne Marie Fowler holds a PhD in world literature in English and translation and an MFA in poetry. Her creative work has been published nationally and internationally, and she is the editor of Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves: A Contemporary Anthology of Asian American Women’s Poetry. Creatively, she seeks to understand the magic of nature, the defining characteristics that make humans operate, and the connectivity of experience between and within cultures. When not writing, she plays hard at being retired.

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