The Fine Art of Suffocating

i.

She is surrounded by leaves.

Lying beneath the canopy,

leaning in         to smell a single bud (still green)

brazen enough to burst through the tangled roses.

ii.

The family gathers

on the freshly mown lawn.

The man and the children wear green

shirts, green shoes, one grass-stained pair

of torn shorts.          Mother binds

herself in blue–same (color) family.

iii.

She cocoons in the iris bed.

Swallowed by its spiked headboard,

dried stamens turn to dust

in her hair.          Deep inside

there is no scent.  The air is dead,

making silence       not love.

The man     tugs a cord      resumes mowing.

iv.

The neighbor watching

from behind tattered curtains

is wrapped in olive cotton.

His camera ticks

like cicadas clicking ribs.

v.

She remembers it is grasshoppers

who rub   veinless wings    to sing.

Dinner refuses to cook itself.

She rises from the bush–

odd butterfly–

invites her family to sit, enjoy the salad.

_______________________________

Jill Wickham is a poet/artist/teacher in Upstate, NY, funding her writing habit by running a children’s art studio.  Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crab Creek Review, Weave, Boxcar Poetry Review, and Pirene’s Fountain, among others.  She is a co-editor of the literary magazine, Ouroboros.