Still Life

I paint a bowl, mounded with limes,
leaves cast shadows on the tablecloth,
candles flicker, flames draw a moth,
then another, and one more, and in time

all memories gather, listening to the moon.
I paint a bowl, steaming with stew,
potatoes, meat—I would feed to you—
peas, carrots—morsels that justify the spoon.

A painting or a dream, a wall of clay
bending to the wind, my bowl. Twigs
fill it. Lemons and limes, currants and figs.
Feathers of fledglings before they fly away.

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Diane Warner (publishing as Diane Hueter) works at the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library of Texas Tech University, where she is curator of a manuscript collection concentrating on contemporary writers of place. She received a BA and MA from the University of Kansas, an MLIS from UT-Austin, and a PhD in English from Texas Tech. Her poetry has appeared in Isotope, BlueLine, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and PMS: Poem Memoir Story. Her book, After the Tornado, was published by Stephen F. Austin UP (2013).