Shipment

Abstract

Shipment Katherine Smith (bio) In the shadow of the dogwood tree, May's white petalsevaporating like steam on the driveway, I scatterletters, envelopes unfolded to rivers of watery ink,steadied by a twisted trunk, read until, done,I flip to the pages of a flower catalogue, dazzling hallucinations for next year's garden:allium, poppies, clematis, peonies. I've heardhow rare such color once was, how pilgrims traveledacross oceans to fetch flowers like blue fire, red coral.Now common as work in a strange town, these flowersspread across my lap. It's easy to circle what I want: golden hummingbird gardens, lavender butterfly bushes,wisteria, vines thick as a man's arms,flower heads that hang like heavy purple breasts,crimson azaleas crushed between the fence posts,a kitchen table, set with china, toast, honey,a pot of smoky amber tea, money. Ten years agoI lifted that walnut table into the moving van that took me from Tennessee. Driven by a preacher,the van sailed past blue mountains, rhododendronsrooted in leaf mulch and red clay, green rivers, limestone quarries.I'll be back for you if you need me, the preacher criedwaving good-bye. I've moved twice since.His letters, spreading the Good News, keep coming. [End Page 60] Like all kindness, news of the past keeps coming,wheel churning the current from Chattanoogato Knoxville, dragging the river bed for scentof earth, mountains and valleys like dark provisions,bare-rooted climbers for trellises of ink, arbors of memory. [End Page 61] Katherine Smith Katherine Smith is a native of East Tennessee and one of the poetry editors of The Potomac Review. Her poems have appeared in Shenandoah, The Southern Review and in her own collection, Argument by Design. She teaches at Montgomery College in Maryland. Copyright © 2008 Berea College