I Want to Tell You

how rice swells after rain and weddings melt away
the honey, how moon grows in the belly

of maples. I want to remember
marigold, how we covered our eyes

to keep our souls from wandering. Wintering
we say that hibernation’s a half moon away.

And how did we come to this, tainted,
mourning? Your ear cocked for news

of the moon, my sprung lip primed
to gun down your ravening dreams.

Poet and photographer, Ronda Broatch is the author of Lake of Fallen Constellations (MoonPath Press, 2015), Shedding Our Skins (Finishing Line Press, 2008), and Some Other Eden (2005). A seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the recipient of an Artist Trust GAP Grant, and was a May Swenson Poetry Award finalist four years running. Ronda’s work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Prairie Schooner, Fourteen Hills, Mid-American Review, and A Fire On Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry.