Volume 8, 2008

Macintosh's Rose

Petra Kuppers

Scottish city slithers slate slick beneath my cane.
Exuberant with sun, pregnant water glitters

a slide, broken ruffle around my rubber kiss—
stumble, near fall, glide, passes by

precarious balance on a circuitous route.
The jewelry store: silver rigidity settled

here, amethyst memory, rose quartz light love,
enamel glitter baked smooth now,

a gentle swell, no inflammation:
I buy a souvenir of a hard city

dangle earrings, for my little sister
her soggy German fens offer gnarled

barbed willows to that city shine:
taps concrete, my cane remembers mud crowns,

slow filling water cups in the land
mark my passing with hydraulic suction

a necklace of absent beads, long gone.
Remember, remember

my sister’s small ear, the golden cut liberated,
           from cut crystal to the rhythm of plain rain.

Return to Table of Contents, Volume 8, 2008.