Cheilanthes lindheimeri
Fairy sword fern
Tim Staley
You stick to moist lips
two miles up Fillmore.
I know you know
Spanish but keep it secret
deep in your xylem.
There might be something trying
but if it does it’ll violate
some basic law of science.
I wonder if I’ll be the spouse
on my deathbed who says,
nope, I couldn’t have been
any nicer.
So many silver green
cummerbunds in a row.
You’re the last fern
as a groomsmen
I ever stood up for.
Why’s it so much easier
believing something’s true
than living your life
according to that truth?
Your frond is founded
on verdant pearl
but most of you
maybe too much of you
slides under the table
like an iceberg.
You’ve poked your fiddlehead
from a million houses
and never once
asked your friends
to help you move.
My wife asked me, do you know
the sweat you get
after crying all day?
No, I said, no, I don’t.
Mary Oliver said, as long as you don’t
mind a little dying,
how could there be
a day in your whole life
that doesn’t have its
splash of happiness.
I brine my mind
in death just fine;
I can feel it splashing.
It’s plain old life
I quail before.
You stand awfully tall
for a sword that’s never
cut somebody down.
It’s rare, but a few times
I doused someone to death with love,
or I accidentally
fed them love so slowly
they inside-outed their tongues
like tadpoles in puddles
gone dry.
Your photosynthesis is selfless.
I guess I’m just
jealous.
~~~~~
Tim Staley was born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1975. He’s been the primary caregiver for Grandma Moses Press since 1992. His books include Lost On My Own Street (Pski's Porch, 2016) and The Most Honest Syllable is Shhh (NightBallet, 2017).