From the Porch
The possum perches in the apple tree
past the moon’s rising. Three dogs circle,
their barks harsh, sudden ripples in the stillness.
Pest control recommends treating every possum
as if it is female, as if it is carrying young.
She hisses with a hundred needle teeth.
Arms crossed, I watch the standoff
in the two-tree orchard. The old dog
plants himself three paces back, wagging
his stub tail. His jaws have crushed bones
and turtle shells. Suburban wild and wary,
the possum resigns to an uncertain safety
in the crook of the limbs.
Chilled in oversized cotton short and shirt,
I admire her versatility – show teeth, play dead,
claw up a tree for plunder. From perpetuity,
rites of survival. How long will she crouch
in the tree, risking her spine over a few sour apples?
I envy the audacity of thieves
and their willingness to risk body and future
to gain, in some eyes, trivialities. I sit in a theater
with the man I love after months more apart
than together. How much will we risk over each other,
after stealing pieces we don’t intend to return.
I would not be afraid if I had not watched him
peal away so much of me.
I cannot recall how she descended,
whether she pocketed the apples or not.
The old dog would have liked to snap her neck
like the one before, when she must have broke
for the fence. The possum remembers her night
of pillaging far better than me, returning to sleep
in that loft alone.
Panzanella
I remember snapdragons coming up like spears
to my chest in my mother’s garden, color of a honeybee’s
stripe, marmalade, and fireworks. Their columns of wavy lips
closed, softly inviting to suck my little finger, to kiss
my nose if plucked. My mother gifted an armful of lilies
to her grandmother and regretted it. She warned me to look,
not touch. Today I am falling into the art of panzanella. Bread ends
toast in the oven, cold tomato skins give way to my knife
with a pull forward or back. A sign of dullness, my lover would say.
The long and hefty cucumber now dissected beneath my hand.
He liked to narrate with the senses as he cooked, timed by pops
and aroma, spent hours crafting a meal disappeared in minutes.
I tear fresh mozzarella apart and am left with a soft film of fat
on my fingertips. With my left hand, I strain ice water
from the red onions, shocked into a softer tang. I shred the basil
and recall a dozen gardens that grew like children, tended or neglected.
The refrigerator hums so loudly. I could not bear to live inside it
any longer than I did. For years, my instinct was to create distance,
to keep a knife between me and the object, to pull on gloves
before planting seeds too old to sprout. Today I have made myself
the sweetness of summer out of season, and I delight
at the heart of the tomato and flesh of the cucumber,
fresh and fragrant. I would give half my years
to live each moment like this, by mouth and hands.
Charis Morgan is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama and an assistant poetry editor at Black Warrior Review. Her work is forthcoming in the Florida Review, Colorado Review, and elsewhere.