The colors, she says, staring
at the hanging basket, the red, orange,
pink, purple of verbena, geranium,
million bells — all tumbling over
the edge, not to be contained.
The pipe with the purple quartz
bead in its stem is still in her hand,
and I remember the first time
she got stoned, decades ago,
devouring a chocolate cream pie
and laughing, laughing, laughing
hungrily. This is how she looks
at these colors now — awed, hungry –
though even the small ripe bits
of orange melon in the cup beside her
are too much for her swallow. I want
to tell her she looks beautiful in
her purple scarf, but I am too
astonished by the appetite of her gaze
and the glint of the river through
the trees and the jewel-green
of the hummingbird, and by watching
her answer her hunger to be here
a while longer in this way,
in just this brilliant way.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 18, Issue 2.
Stephanie Coyne DeGhett is a poet and fiction writer who teaches at a small liberal and performing arts college. Work includes poetry in Spoon River Review and forthcoming in Coal City Review—with fiction in The Missouri Review and forthcoming in Cottonwood. Recent essays in the South Carolina Review and The Writer’s Chronicle. http://stephaniecoynedeghett.tumblr.com
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