Primer

      The sweet hour of prime. -Milton


Lesson one was stitched on skin
Like the carved flowers of my bodice.
There was more than one promise, love,
I have melted many, times twenty—
Exploded like stars and cross-pollinated for fun.

I was aroused by stitchery then.
Each time bound by rings
I opposed two involutes,
Fell into deep vats of indigo
And rinsed my flesh in the wind.

What should I say when you ask|
If I would do it again—
But stretch this silk by piercing,
Flame, and open to the vinery.

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Karen Morris received The Gradiva Award for Poetry (NAAP, 2015) for her full-length collection CATACLYSM and Other Arrangements (Three Stones Press, PA). Her poems have appeared in Chiron Review, Plainsongs, Writers Resist, SWWIM Every Day, Stillwater Review, Paterson Literary Review, and others. She is a psychoanalyst by profession, cofounder and transmitted lay teacher for Two Rivers Zen Community in Narrowsburg, NY. She lives and works in Barre, Vermont.