Christmas Lima Beans

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"