Baptism by Water Bath
After spending time in boiling water, their gunny sack dresses
are slipped off, their ruby flesh cut into chunks
spooned into jars with salt, cloves, cinnamon, allspice berries.
Sugar and vinegar are poured over;
sweet and sorrow for preserving.
Lids are secured.
The kettle, mottled blue and grey, rumbles.
The heavy steam rises in anticipation of the baptism
of the beets by water and heat.
The jars with hearts bleeding are lowered–
some bow over. . .
I look at the jars now lined up on the counter
waiting for the click of their tongues for having put up
with so much for so long.
Sealed inside, magenta beauties.
My fingers bear witness.
Boundaries Are Hard to Define
My childhood was filled with borders, boundaries
barbed wire enclosures, ledges, fences
I climbed over, shimmied under, rubbed against, stepped over.
I was restless, wanted more, resisted, yet found comfort
with the barriers I wandered around, inside, outside, wondering.
They signalled the end of something, the beginning of another.
Things, people, animals were kept in, out.
Sometimes they escaped, returned home.
They were broken down, mended, left unattended.
I was sometimes caught, snagged, shocked in my attempts
to cross over, resulting in tears in clothes, tears on cheeks.
Safety was found inside, outside, it all depended.
It was when I ran up against the jagged, hard edges
that I discovered steadfastness, fidelity, forbearance
eventually tenderness, forgiveness.
Skinny-dipping In the Church Basement
Sitting on cold metal chairs in the church basement
we gather, searching for a way to live while drowning
gasping for any breath of hope
looking for a way to save ourselves as our loved ones pull us under.
We recognize the newcomers with eyes downcast, silent, fragile clamouring for relief.
The meeting begins.
Hi, I’m . . .
The experienced are willing to fully disrobe
to a nakedness you dare not look away from.
There is mercy in this vulnerability. A weight is lifted
and the body is able to rise for that breath that revives the soul.
Anger, shame, fear, helplessness mingle with the sobbing
transforming in a mysterious way.
The fledglings will often pass. They tread water
wrapping their arms as if to hold everything in place
fearing what will happen once they begin to expose themselves.
They will return, as they have witnessed too much.
They will take their turn when the time is right
leave their chairs to make a racket
skinny-dip with the rest of us.
Compressing Time into Wide-Open Moments
The fog curtains, then lifts slowly, revealing five stately pines
compressed in line, in their uniform greens
armed heavy, bowing toward me
hijacking the view beyond, shuttering the house on the other side
conifering scent all around.
The sunlight lichens the air. I moss myself into green
rabbit hole into my nest on the patio chair.
The blue sky breathes, crisping the morning
while the racooning in my mind ceases.
I’m just sparrowing away my time, being
the buzzing bumble bees, the balming flowers
the holy-spirited chime
the mourning doves, the chipmunks on retreat
the fountain blessing
seeding my dreams
compressing my time into the briefest of moments.
This place wide-opens me.
When Clouds Break Open
You can’t miss the monstrous puffballs hiding among the ferns
under the shade of the mulberry trees, forgetting what the sun feels like.
This fungi family grows in dark conditions, feeds off dead matter.
Their fruit bodies will eventually crack open, emitting the spores inside.
We are all capable of monstrous acts in this achingly beautiful human family
of our belonging; all of us a mixture of beauty, ugliness
generosity, selfishness, good, evil. So much of it we try to conceal
forgetting what it feels like to be real.
Our only choice then is to forgive this frailty in each other
knowing we are both the broken open and the one doing the breaking.
Angela Hoffman lives in Wisconsin. Her poetry has appeared in Solitary Plover, Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets’ Museletter and Calendar, Agape Review, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Your Daily Poem, Writing In A Woman’s Voice, Moss Piglet, Amethyst Review, and Orchards Poetry Journal.
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