Morning Glory (or White Complacency)
Morning glory is another name
for field bindweed,
an invasive plant,
with bright, white blooms,
a praiseworthy sight,
if it didn’t smother
the rest of the garden.
Yesterday, I detangled
the creeping vine
wrapped around rhododendron stems.
After unravelling and pulling,
I took the coiled rope of it
to the yard trash bin
and slammed the lid.
Today, morning glory was back
squeezing the life
from the neck of the yew.
This white weed wants to
suffocate the variegated garden
and blanket the beds
in a field of itself.
To rid the yard of a colonizer,
one must dig out the roots.
But I don’t want to bother
with lifting the iron shovel
and disrupting the even soil
and taxing my arthritic back.
I’ll remove the visible vine
but leave the structure below.
And when my richly-hued garden
becomes a sheet of ghostly white
I’ll have no one to blame
but myself.
Friend/Unfriend
Despair is my friend
She cuddles up close under the blanket
Lays her head on my shoulder
Exhales
She sniffs the soup
I’m stirring
Watches from the drying rack
Rustles the grocery bags
Lingers
She floats on coffee foam
Licks empty plates
Fingers my keyboard
Hovers
“I will never unfriend you,” she says
as she wraps my scarf around her shoulders
and lays across the neighboring couch
Settles
What I Miss About Restaurants
For Gabrielle Hamilton
1.
a marble slab table
a candle flickering yellow
a vase filled with thistle
2.
a cocktail in a clear, clean glass and
the drink is not sweet
music that I don’t need to figure it out
or sing to
your flushed face in focus
3.
rosemary, fat, olive oil,
rattlesnake drink shakers,
lime, muddled mint,
glazed brussel sprouts,
silver scraping ceramic,
sizzling skate wing,
volcanic laughter, tonic,
brothy beans, breton butter cake,
an extended inked arm holding heaping plates,
a hushed sacred proposal
4.
on my body
an open neck shirt
charcoal liner
white vetiver oil
5.
in the wine
a stage set confession
a new life direction
a velvet, smoky truth
6.
frothy coffee,
a salted caramel tear,
the din dying down,
your hot hand,
smells spilling onto the
rain splattered sidewalk,
a look back through the glass
at amber lit diners falling in love
Miranda Volpe | Three Poems from the Perspective of the Pandemic | These are three poems I wrote during the pandemic. One addresses the problem with white silence/complacency, the next the sense of living with despair, and the third an ode to restaurants inspired by Chef Gabrielle Hamilton and her restaurant, Prune, in NY.