Camellia at Midnight

What on earth are you thinking,
showing your skirts at this late hour,
red pantaloons escaping
your sensible winter dress?
Yes, it must be crisp and cool
for your petals to stay limber. But who,
who keeps you going when all the bees
are sleeping? Who transfers your dreams
from anther to pistil,
draws your name backwards
on the vanity mirror?
Can it possibly be me,
with my ridiculous flashlight,
aping the sun,
my shining, shining, shining?

Bradford Pears

cotton candy the driveway,
while the greening world deepens.
The birds are ebullient: so much to do this time of year.
Spring comes early south of the Mason-Dixon.

I grope for the tools of consciousness,
though I’d rather let go.
I am not the man, the will, the practical chainsaw,
nor the bee buzzing bloom to bloom.

I’m the limb breaking
from its twisted trunk mid-thunder—
confetti everywhere—the woman
stretched out on the wet lawn, mouth open,

drinking whatever falls from the sky.
I am Lady Bird Johnson planting the specimen sapling
as the white sun rises over the capital.
I am promiscuous,

pollinating any other tree that will have me.
They’re told to consider dogwood, serviceberry,
redbud or silverbell instead. It’s downright
illegal to plant me now.

But no, I am my own mother
admonishing me for loving
the lost. Look how much
of my life is splitting open, even now.

Cataract

I sit cloudy-eyed and tearing,
with my rescue tabby
basking in white sun
that sings through the morning window.

Blinking in sync with his thumping tail,
we kill birds in our mind,
as they congregate and scatter
on winter rye.

The sunshine increases.
It floods my morning,
and every living thing
I’ve ever wanted to devour.

Julia Wendell’s sixth collection of poems The Art of Falling was published by FutureCycle Press in 2022; Daughter Days will be published by Unsolicited Press in 2025. A Pushcart winner and recipient of fellowships from Bread Loaf and Yaddo, her poems have appeared widely in magazines such as American Poetry Review, Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Cimarron Review, and Nimrod. She is the Founding Editor of Galileo Press. Julia lives in Aiken, South Carolina, and is a three-day event rider.