Chrysanthemum

 

I’m looking at the white bunched
head of a chrysanthemum
when you arrive.

The way the sunlight lops off
half its hair is
less of a mystery than

you, leaning against sandstone,
bisected by the string
under your shirt.

I may as well take its ball of wool
head in my hands
and scan its pleated fringe

for answers, as ask your eyes
to spill old memory.
Lotuses stare back from pools.

All this was water
in the beginning. Between
us are our legends.

from The Girls on the Wall (Auckland University Press, 1999), © Diana Bridge 1999, used by permission of the author. Recording from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive 2004

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