And still I’m traipsing through the fields
of wildflowers and grass and foxtails. Beyond
these fields are more fields and then more
and then the cloudless sky. Bees hovering
around coral-colored blooms, I make my way
to the river, crowned in clovers and briars,
hair more nest than hair, knees stained red
with scars. Pluck a peach from the tree rimming
someone’s property and pulse it in my hand,
inhale the scent of its skin. I’m no good
at girlhood—worse yet at being good.
Above, the moon swells in blue skies
and the cicadas keep screaming.
This is a reprint of work originally published in The Berkeley Times.
Despy Boutris is published or forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, The Adroit Journal, Prairie Schooner, Palette Poetry, Third Coast, Raleigh Review, Diode, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. Currently, she teaches at the University of Houston and serves as Assistant Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast.
Eunoia Review 