Phaseolus lunatus
By M. L. Brown
Their shape a wave, a curl of sea. Their skin
a splash of brown and feathered sweep
on white sand beach, alive, alive—O!
Oval gems rocking in my palm.
I close my hand around them, long for you
to touch them, too, tell me what wondrous thing
they call to mind, hear the intake of your breath
at beauty I can barely describe.
Some also call them Temple of Peace;
I find no proof of this. They disturb
with desire—to touch, to press to lips,
to worry them to moth wings that I might see
their magic, wind-spread, like your ashes
above a swerve of water.
M. L. Brown is the author of Call It Mist, winner of the 2018 Three Mile Harbor Press Book Prize, and Drought, winner of the Claudia Emerson Chapbook award. Her work has appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, and Blackbird, among other journals and anthologies. Also by this poet: "Lupini Bean - Extra Large" and "House"