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.