Honeysuckle, by Sarah Lindsay

Helpless as an apricot in heavy sun

blushing into softness

or a sliced strawberry

drawing sugar into its flesh,

she turns on the couch to face east,

his house, she eats the limp scraps

of honeysuckle dropped on the chocolate box,

drifts over midnight wet grass

as if drowned by a single star--

feels a cool leaf edge, unmelting, draw her arm.

Puts all five fingers into a rose

and makes it open too.

From “Primate Behavior” by Sarah Lindsay (Grove Press: 104 pp., $20) Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.