Today's poem is by Chelsea Woodard

Emily Dickinson's Herbarium
       

Wide-lobed threes of trillium leaves taped
and labeled, trifoliate veins, wrinkles dried
and finite as her penciled marks beneath.
My hands are attuned to the weight of pages pressed
long on such fragile anatomies—pistils of lilies,
cowslip petals, delphinium halos and bright spikes
of iris, ovaries and ovules tenderly picked,
patterned and splayed. I know the body

of desire could fill a book and still spill
out. It isn't a question of will, or killing
for pleasure, for beauty that's flattened and lasts past
the end of one season, where we've lived in bloom
and hate to leave. Late February casts
its defeatist light—I quit this reliquary now, this room.

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Copyright © 2024 Chelsea Woodard All rights reserved
from At the Lepidopterist's House
Southern Indiana Review Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission