Kathy O'Fallon  

Why I Take the Same Walk

Someone tossed watermelon seeds under the lemon trees. 
They say illegals live in the groves.
I’ve heard it’s a popular place to deal drugs.
Ungroomed, it sits in the middle
of a neighborhood, about five acres.
The seeds sprouted, spreading across the land,
stretching like tributaries, upward
like the famous bean stalk,
berries seeming to swell overnight.
Megaphone leaves, roaring from their plumage,
have overshadowed the tear-drop foliage,
dwarfing the tiny, sun-tipped fruit,
but somehow the lemon trees support them,
even bearing the watermelons’ full weight.
Every day another lamb, another lion.

 

 

Waking Up

As if some previous owner had wed here,
the trellis that approaches my front door
is shouldered by a climbing rosebush,
miniatures to be precise,
the color of a girl’s baby blanket.

I’m not married, by choice,
yet when I leave for work
I transfuse my body with scent,
almost as if in my honeymoon’d state
I’d received the gift of semen
without its narrative.

Can you imagine, the whole day long,
saturated with that consciousness,
the body cradling something holy?

 

Kathy O’Fallon is a psychologist, grandmother of three, mother of two, sister of seven, cousin of many, friend of several, and lover of all things spiritual—or everything.  She has published fiction and poetry in literary journals, magazines, anthologies, and chapbooks. kathy@drofallon.com