Purple Crush
Because I wear my desires
so close to the skin
are they no less holy
than crushed lavender in the illicit bed.
The colorful iris perfumed like a grape would be as effervescent in shades of gray.
We can't smell our sins anymore than the lilacs across the way can smell their fragrance.
strip me
strip me of my thin veneer of righteousness
and you will find me on a good day, a smear of red paint on a canvas,
strained at every corner, speaking out loud while saying nothing,
staring across the field humbled by a rush of purple.
Letter From Vincent
You are my woman
of the moonless night
my child wife
my only sister
my better brother
my knife
my courage and my innocence
my eyes in the darkness
You are the music
playing through my wall
amid the white powder
my angel fish glowing in the tank.
You are my starry, starry night.
Perpetua
It was the late freeze that killed
my flowers, the shrubs turned
brown and died,
the camellia and the gardenia—
my jasmine is sanguine
and doomed on the vine.
An old cane of the Cecile Brunner
rose—the finial of the garden
is pinioned to the ground.
I don't think it will ever bloom again.
I hope it doesn't.
I want all green things to suffer
as I have from my perennial winter.
Anniversary
Stay home with me on this chilly day.
We will celebrate the sun and its mysteries.
We will huddle together in the corner of our dwelling and wait for the night's insistence.
We will shutter the moon as it tries to intrude,
while I sit at your feet
the whole night through
and kiss you with my sugared breath.
Nancy Kennedy's work has been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Best of Choeofpleirn, Miserere Review, Highland Park Poetry, Thimble, and is upcoming in Gargoyle. She currently lives in Alabama.
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