by Michelle Menting

She made it look so easy, my sister,
when she paused before the trail hollowed
into hemlock and oak, when she dipped

from her waist as if nothing but hinge of skin
and with fingers floating, grazing the patch
of dandelions, she stroked the back of a bumblebee.

We all doubt the real magic of this world.
For so long I questioned the insistence of beauty
in planted peonies, why so many maintain it's there.

How some might see a flower so wondrous of pink
and puce or heart-blossomed red, and I'd repulse,
reject those petals of tottering globes as full baubles

of stick shaped like cheap popcorn balls my sisters
and I made as a kids, corn syrup glazing, baptizing
our palms as we cupped and cupped, so desperate

for sweetness. But now I see those peonies
covered with ants and neighboring aphids, communing
or broaching something others think baleful: an orgy

of insects groping slick nectar so eagerly they'd think,
how unseemly. But don't you see the mirror?
Let's reconcile this religion of flowers—

believe me, this too is a psalm: to fingertip the felt
of an insect pollinating a weed is to praise
& partner in all the green wonder that we are.

______________________________________________________________

Michelle Menting’s poems and flash nonfictions have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Radar Poetry, New South, Fourth River, New Delta Review, and Glass, among others. She is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Leaves Surface Like Skin (Terrapin Books), and has received awards and recognition for her written work from Sewanee, Bread Loaf, the National Park Service, the Maine Literary Awards, and other conferences, residencies, and honors. She lives in Maine.