Your Rose Meditative

Abstract

Your Rose Meditative Joannie Stangeland (bio) Your Rose Meditative After Salvador Dali Take me, I am the drugof your morning, the bees knees endlesslybuzzing—that hum under your tongue,sub rosa, tabula rasa. Take mein your hips, your ribs,swarming your arms, tomorrowthe spines of a fan snapped open.Remember heat like this?Take me to the translation,ticket for the midnight runto Amsterdam. I am goodfor the fare, good for the window seatand most excellent for starsin the night's mouth. Swallow mein the sleeper car, take mewith Grolsch and Gouda, the moonand the past's leather satchel.Take me in your vessels, your cells,your endoplasmic reticulum.In your dreams, take me coldand holy like the angels in Florenceold-eyed and silent since the Renaissance.Wake me up when dawnis the slit in a woman's skirt,a cat in the stairwell, a postscriptat the end of the letter you meant [End Page 62] to send last Wednesdaywhen it rained all afternoon.Take me to your leader, your diner, your mother.Take me like booze in a shot glass,shot in the dark whistling.Let us go then together. [End Page 63] Joannie Stangeland Joannie Stangeland is the author of two poetry collections and three chap-books. Her poems have also appeared in Cimarron Review, the Southern Review, and other journals. Copyright © 2018 University of Nebraska Press