ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Originally from Ohio, Shuly Xóchitl Cawood is the author of the memoir, The Going and Goodbye (Platypus Press, 2017) and the forthcoming poetry and prose chapbook, None of Them Home (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2018). She has an MFA from Queens University, and her creative writing has been published in places such as The Rumpus, Zone 3, Fiction Southeast, Cider Press Review, Full Grown People, Prime Number Magazine, and The Louisville Review.
Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning
Yellow ruffles of dandelion, so much like crêpe
paper, so open its flower face.
A struck match, the flame tilting like curiosity.
The forest that beckons you deep into its pine,
needles soft in your palm,
the way the path skinnies like it knows
exactly where it is going.
The way he leans in and says, I promise,
his copper eyes like pennies
you have plenty of, that you don't think
one day it will be so hard to lose.
The idea for the poem came while I was looking out my front window at the dandelions that had popped up everywhere: I was thinking about how something so beautiful can take over the lawn, grow ridiculously stubborn roots, and choke out other plants. I dated a man once who was both loving and kind but later could become cruel under certain circumstances. I don't know that I was thinking of him in particular when I wrote it, but I was thinking of all the ways we cannot know a thing or person at the start, and how their complexities and darkness later reveal themselves to us.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
