Small Peony

A little fist waiting to uncurl,
a little girl’s hand gripping
a ruby ring from the gumball machine,
her bee-stung pout—

the little girl being you, my mother,
with your fist that could hit,
the princess leading the pack,
wielding your pink flag,

and late in womanhood loving
a flower extravagant as you were not
and were, age weighing your petals
until they creased, bleeding rouge at their seams,
sighing into a deeper scent,
falling into tissues
I fold in my palm.

.

Birthday Wish

The dog doesn’t know he’s a dog
though he knows all he needs
to know to be a dog.
That tree over there, the one
with two branches conducting
green music, can’t spell
chlorophyll, or chill.
It does not bark like a dog.
The tree knows to shed its coat
when autumn comes, and
the dog senses he sheds
his fur in spring,
such contrary seasons
unconscious of being seasons
or seasons passing, just as
the dog won’t know when
he’s not a dog, and
the maple won’t comprehend
the hatchet coming,
or the rot, or fire.
May I, like the dog, the tree,
their limbs, their bark,
their barklessness,
the coming fall, the fire,
the hatchet, and the rot,
know only what I need to be.

^^^

David Groff is a poet, editor and teacher whose collections include Clay (Trio House Press, 2013), winner of the Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence, Theory of Devolution (University of Illinois Press, 2002), which was chosen by Mark Doty for the National Poetry Series, and Live in Suspense (Trio House Press, 2023). He lives in New York City.

“Birthday Wish” originally appeared in Live in Suspense (Trio House Press, 2023).

Read a conversation about these poems between David Groff and Oblivioni‘s Tracy Rybacki.

Photograph: Lorna Pauli / Pexels