Meadows

What would the meadow hold
if not a certain mustiness
that reminded the woman
of closets and hats,
lost desires and habits.

Even the butterflies' wings,
spotted and moiled
instead of pretty, spent the day
folded together like papers.
Dented with overwork,
marred and torn.

A meadow has no need
of memory: What better place
to contain Orpheus, his tiresome
need to muse as so many voices.

Under any rock
a woman lifts
there will be the usual
stale potato bugs
and grubs, things she meant
to pin together and sew
to make the world over
because it was so beautiful
to begin with.

But that was Paradise,
and the garter snake, benign,
marked by two parallel
yellow lines, offers nothing
to compare
with temptation.

Only the secret yearnings
she held like grief,
things not to be told to anyone
for fear they would disappear.

Copyright © 2007 Judith Skillman All rights reserved
from Coppelia, Certain Digressions
David Robert Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission