Tend - by Jo Langdon

ISLAND | ISSUE 159

I could some days mistake for a flower
the perineum—by letter & sound—it’s true:

like some variant nasturtium
of jaunty colour atop salad leaves & dressed
in bright oil       (else a perennial among
the dahlia, salvia, agapanthus, lobelia—

the soft give, stretch of leaf; bend & wet
break of succulent: echeveria, aloe, jade.

 In the clinic she said ‘I’d like to make another
stitch, is that okay?’      Then—‘Let’s hope
it works, let’s hope—’

Though it’s true that
petals in disrepair don’t really
resemble anything else. My daughter tears
their heads open, her fat baby

fists unforgiving, each garden rife
for ruinous joy, the pleasures
of unmaking

a body like a bed like a
plan, like a seam
pulled loose— a
piece of cake.

It worked in the way that things work
out—like a platitude. Love fell
over us, anyway

unforgiving
in stark summer light, here
where pictures pin us

to tired bodies, against
pink walls—those sure & perfect buds
of climbing rose, of fuchsia
beyond us. It’s true

I don’t have the language
I once did. ▼

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This poem appeared in Island 159 in 2020. Order a print issue here.

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