MARJORIE JENSEN

★ ★ ★ ★

POETRY

Image by Frenjamin Benklin

Draw me a violet orchid

unfold petals to reveal purple curves
give me that soft floral moment
of openness:
an unfading unfurling
a worship of the sun
a perpetual blooming.

Strokes of lead melt into the page—
the immortal page—
the dying of the pencil
memorializing the orchid.

Can I capture the orchid like you?
Pin it with a purple butterfly
a poetic corsage of paper
rendered in the reader’s mind
traveling paths of signification

while the image is whole
in your illustrated notebook.

Muse-Editor; Body-Reader

Carrying the familiar
ghosts of other women:

word-bound, they haunt
on the page, channeled

by men who demand
I evaluate apparitions.

Gifts of invocations,
loose-leaf grimoires

(somehow unable to find
a stapler after calling spirits)

surround me in piles.
The weight of your loves

tugs at my shoulder-
bag filled with lyrics

I must carry back to you.