A visit from memory
You always show up
on my doorstop that old suitcase
strapped together in tatters
from overuse much travel
much showing up bringing
hostess-gifts I never need
or want–sour lemon marmalade
(who eats lemon marmalade anyway)
hard candies roasted peanuts
and praline sauce to sweeten
the visit turn crackers into pie
a tourist really no
a poor relation looking for a handout
not money just your pound of flesh
ready to rehash all the old famil-
iar stories all those dead horses
what we haven’t thought about
in years like an old fish
hooks in the mouth skin peeling
off in leathery strips jaundiced
eyes glazed no gills wheezing
a trophy
the unpacking out come
the tawdry old wares worn shoes
soiled shirts wrinkled pants derelict
until I guess you grow weary
or nostalgic for home and I wake
to fix breakfast and blessed
you are gone the house oddly still
and silent with new dead hours.
Sharing Figs
I planted the ficus “Brown Turkey”
beneath three tall pines, because
it was the one spot that got some sun,
because I wanted figs: figs to own,
figs to pick, figs to eat—imagine
figs for the asking, figs for the taking,
my very own tree in my very own yard.
Four figs would do. But,
I lived a figless life. My tree plumped
forth just hard little green nuggets,
clutching brittle brown branches.
Squirrels mistook them for nuts
and scuttled off with my crop.
Not even four figs for me
from the spindly bush competing
with towering pines. Now,
pine trees are gone to ice storms;
my wimpy “Brown Turkey” is huge
and covered in figs—luscious, plump
purple, and syrupy sweet: figs for birds,
who dive in for a bite, move on
to make room for bees, ants and huge
ugly fig beetles. And,
since I still get no figs and am not
in the bug-, bird-, and beast-feeding
business—and all I ever wanted was
four—just four inviolate figs of my own,
I’m cutting it down after summer is past.
I’m waiting till late fall, in case, I might
salvage a fig or two before first frost.
Cordelia Hanemann is currently a practicing writer and artist in Raleigh, NC. A retired professor of English at Campbell University, she has published in numerous journals including Atlanta Review, Connecticut River Review, Southwestern Review, and Laurel Review; anthologies, The Poet Magazine’s new anthology, Friends and Friendship, Heron Clan and Kakalak and in her own chapbook, Through a Glass Darkly. Her poem, “photo-op” was a finalist in the Poems of Resistance competition at Sable Press and her poem “Cezanne’s Apples” was nominated for a Pushcart. Recently the featured poet for Negative Capability Press and The Alexandria Quarterly, she is now working on a first novel, about her roots in Cajun Louisiana.
Bindweed Magazine 