appealing

The Maynard
Spring 2016

Arleen Paré

With Their Flicker Fork Tongues, Snakes Taste the Bitter, Bright Air

O, Katsura, after the downpour, fragrance swells at your base.  As if pheromones.  Your leaves blush, little cheeks.  End of October and the dark sets in too soon.  Your leaves smell like candy, as if romance waits at the corner.  These short days of Scorpio, snake eyes and ladders.  I prefer summer when dark enters the heart only after light loses its charm.  The warmth of the underworld.  The wisdom.  There is a villa in Kyoto that borrows your name.  A house named after a tree.  When my love whispers close to my ear, the scent she exhales is as if candy kisses.  When Maori greet one another, they press foreheads and noses together, sharing the breath that comes straight from the gods.  When she tells me she loves me, she tells me from the earth’s core.

two women together
alone
in the luminous house